Vanity Productions - The Night Has Passed Already

As we float into the cold, arid sea, Vanity Productions mans the helm. The Night Has Already Passed (2024) is a distorted collection of tunes touching sorrow, loss, and vulnerability. As you may know, The Northern Electronics label is well-versed in distorted atmospheric cuts. Still, Christian Stadsgaard brings a new, enthralling, all-encompassing take to the incredible Swedish label. The Night Has Passed Already (2024) flirts between dreamlike soundscapes that move in slow motion and chaotic swirling tundra, opaque and brutal. They simultaneously straddle a line of being incredibly introspective and personal yet emotionally dense and abstract. 

Stadsgaard's opener, 'Terrace House,' sounds like memories played back in vivid detail, only degraded by time. This is echoed in 'Way Around the Canvas' as they both use drawn-out melancholic segments that meld. But not all the tracks are so romantic; for example, the title track, 'The Night Has Passed Already', is frantic in mood. Dazzling fuzz renders the track as opaque as the foam hitting rocks in a crashing storm before being soothed in the final act, shining with a beautiful coastal spray of swelling strings. This trend continues into 'Transparent Sea of White' but incorporates biblical ambivalence, as does 'Surrounded in Silence'. These tracks weave soaring angelic vocals or eery screaming guitars behind walls of thick fuzz. 

The final track is a tasteful mix of everything that came before. Intense textures fold into each other, accented by hissing distortion. There is palpable solemness as synthesises quake as if crying on 'So Dried Up and Malnourished'. Vanity Productions has produced one of the most expressive and captivating records I've heard in the experimental genre. The production is brutalist and DIY but refuses to be dark. Stadsgaard perfectly captures the confusion that comes with pain in such an elegant way.

Tracklist:

1. Terrace House

2. The Night Has Passed Already

3. Transparent Sea of White

4. Shrouded in Silence

5. Way Around the Canvas

6. So Dried Up and Malnourished

Label: Northern Electronics (2024)

Vanity Productions - The Night Has Passed Already