Skidbladni was made entirely from the output of an image synthesizer that turns pictures into sounds. Akashic Crow’s Nest spliced the music and added effects, but provided no additional instrumentation. From the variety and naturalism of the music, I’d never have guessed. Lots of droning, sparkling, twanging, moaning, popping, and shining. By the way, “Skidbladni” does actually mean something: “A ship made by the dwarfs, large enough to hold all the gods, but which could be folded together like a sheet of paper, and put into a purse when not required for use.” Whatever. The music doesn’t sound process-generated to me, so there’s definitely a future for this kind of processed soundscape experimentation. I wonder what kind of music Picasso’s Three Musicians play?

Skidbladni is available from the Internet Archive in 192kbps MP3s and as a full-album ZIP.

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