Deathprod-Journey to the Center of the First 1.1

One of my favorite musical finds ever is Nordheim Transformed (1998, Rune Grammofon), a collaborative reworking of creations by Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim by ambient alchemists Deathprod (Helge Sten) and Biosphere (Geir Jensen). Journey to the Center of the First 1.1 has Deathprod taking field recording elements and textures from Nordheim's piece Warszawa (from his album Electric, 1998, Rune Grammofon) and creating a vast and frosty grid of sentiment and solitude. Children's voices climbing amidst the disintegrated soundscape call to mind, albeit opaquely, Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge (1955-56). However, the overall mood of this metamorphosis is far more languid. One could easily be drawn into an ethereal trance by it's slow, swelling tones were it not for perfunctory echoes of the everyday. Offering many such Ovidian epiphanies, Nordheim Transformed is an artifact of understated sonic brilliance.