BLACK, WHITE & GREY

Soundscape music like this is so intriguing to me. WHEN is the one man project of Lars Pedersen out of Norway. The man is incredibly gifted at creating these sound collages, mixing them with structured themes at times, and headphone music all the way. I feel that his first two albums released in the second half of the 80's are his high water mark. Actually those first four albums("Black, White & Grey" being the third of those) are important documents as it were of this style of music. His first two are classics, while this one is a step down from those in my opinion. I like how the album covers of his first four have a common theme.

Chris Cutler(HENRY COW and RER Records) and Lars had a chance meeting in the late eighties. This was followed with Cutler helping Lars out here on this 1991 release with the texts of this album, he wrote them. The original album here was released in Norway only by the Tatra Productions label. The next year in 1992 Cutler and his RER Records gave this a world-wide release but not without doing some changes first. Like changing the cover art and adding a bunch of pictures in the thick 14 page liner notes. The pictures are mostly black and white, and of architecture. They also added as a bonus track the over 20 minute title track from the previous record "Death In A Blue Lake".

It's interesting that the next record that Lars recorded from 1992 is back to him alone, and back on Tatra Productions. It says this on the back cover "Black White and Grey has something to do with the destruction of the earth". The explosives and gun fire did sound like WWIII at times I must say. Very apocalyptic sounding. There's also a "thanks" in the liner notes to the Ogle Choir who are on the short track "From White To White". The original recordings for this began in 1988 at Cluster Studios, then finished in 1990 at the Waterfall studio.

The album opens with the 20 minute "Grey(Part I)" and the sounds to start are so faint, I'm tempted to turn it up, but I'm not falling for that again. It's wind as the sound increases. Around 1 1/2 minutes organ and apocalyptic sounds take over. A calm before another rainfall of terror hits us. Sirens around 4 1/2 minutes along with industrial sounds. Vibes and atmosphere 2 minutes later then samples are added before more explosive sounds and gun fire. Beats and a rhythm surprisingly after 10 minutes. And were only half way through! Another calm with piano this time then more apocalyptic sounds then another calm. Silence before 13 minutes. It's over? The world I mean. No, faint sounds arrive before we get this chaotic ending.

The album ends with "Grey(Part II)" at 9 minutes. I like that atmospheric intro and the bassoon after a minute before samples arrive making it interesting. Some haunting sounds then suddenly it kicks into gear. Spoken words before this album ends with atmosphere. Now it's over. A low 4 stars as I feel this is a step down from his first two recordings. Still, this is just so interesting, and for sure headphone music.