Night Jerks

About

Third album from the unpredictable, genre defying Okkultokrati! Okkultokrati once again address the public with Night Jerk, an album created to spread confusion and despair. The band reposition themselves as a foreign object: moving high and fast, impossible to catch or categorize. The time towards the album release has been marred by hardship and insecurity for guitarist and songwriter Pål Bredup, who has been struggling with an aggressive muscular disease. "All the frustration and pain from the last twelve months has been documented on Night Jerk. Every beat has been an attack on the body," Bredup say. The illness led to him temporarily replacing his guitar with a synthesizer in both Okkultokrati and Haust. As a result, the synth is heavily represented on Night Jerk, even though Bredup by now has picked up the guitar again. Also on guitar is newcomer Milton von Krogh of Pirate Love, who has recently joined the band permanently, as well as producing the album. Von Krogh has also recorded and mixed records for both Haust and Årabrot in the past year. Milton’s guitars provide the band with a sharp and ice cold edge, and he is also the only member of "Oslo-band" Okkultokrati who is actually born in the capital. Night Jerks is a monotonous master piece, where chilly, modern reality gets its musical counterpoint. But the album is no soundtrack of frustration - instead, the listener is introduced to an introverted, contained and harmonious piece of music where a focused band creates their cosmo. "Moon Daggers" and the title track continue the familiar Okkultokrati sound, while "The Ladder (Punched Out)" is reminiscent of The Birthday Party at their hairiest. Synth and alternative percussion characterize both ends of the album (not least in the monumental closing track "Cosmic Wynter"), and channel Okkultokrati’s fascination for dark music's high priest, Austrian musician Zero Kama. While the previous albums were produced by Ruben Willem (No Light for Ma, 2010) and Emil Nikolaisen (Snakereign, 2012), Night Jerks is produced by the band. Recorded at Årabrot HQ Djura Missionshus in Sweden and Tåkeheimen studio in Norway, Milton von Krogh and Pål Bredrup have maintained full control. The result is the ultimate Okkultokrati record, where the band’s primal punk finds its place in a captivating beat, filled with floating guitars and rumbling synth. .

via Last.fm

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