Juv.
July 5, 2011, 0 comments
A wall — a thick, murky wall of sound peaks up from the ground, growing taller and taller as you curiously approach it, ignoring the steady shadow that slowly builds up a sharp, terrifying form behind it.
Three letters: Juv. There was something about the album cover stroke me, it was a familiar motive, an old memory from the past, a smell of fire in the air, and there was no way I was leaving my local record shop without it. To be honest, however, I wasn’t quite ready for what was hidden behind the (at first sight) beautiful cover art, which I later found out literally explained the whole album in its full. Juv’s first, and maybe last release is not easy to like, and neither is it meant to. This sound is different, and you are hereby warned: it is probably some of the deepest, most frightening drone you’ve pointed your fine ears upon in a while, exploring the feeling of desolation with raw, naked emotion.
Behind these three, beautifully pronounced letters is an interesting story, too: for all though the Norwegian duo and once again good friends Are Mokkelbost and Marius Von Der Fehr have crafted a sound clearly in the veins of the early black metal, neither of them were fans of the metal scene during the recordings of these stripped-down compositions fifteen years ago. As a friendship faded, so too did the project once so full of ambitions that was recorded over a decade ago — recently to be dug up in the tape collection of Mokkelbost himself, whom was once again amazed by the quality of their almost vanished sound; today finally available for us all to listen.
What is it, then, you ask, that is unique about Juv‘s wall of sound, emerging through distorted guitars, human screams and tiny glimpses of piano or violin playing in the distant, Northern landscape? The knowing of a long-forgotten project that was shattered to pieces as two souls separated on different paths is impossible to lay aside, all though this knowing helps carrying out the complete feeling of loneliness and both personal and artistic growth. Moreover, Juv’s music shows a strong undergoing fear of isolation, of devolving into nothingness, something that again leads us back to the very album cover: a mountain being gradually eclipsed by another mountain, until finally disappearing completely, turning into an invisible shadow in the cold night.
Juv is available for CD/vinyl purchase over at Miasmah Recordings.
