12k has yet to release a distasteful album. Usually their groups are exercises in restraint, with the focus being on how they can forge new paths in the quiet and subdued.
Following in this sort of template is Pjusk, who employ a minimal dub aesthetic for all of these songs. Monolake has already worked in this sort of sound, and with a bit more energy. Yes, the ambiance is tasteful, yes the sounds are well-picked, but it feels very derivative.
Most of the sounds you hear on the first track are the same you’ll hear throughout the entire album. Plus, there’s little to indicate when the last track ended and the new one began. At some point this transforms into images of Europeans hunched over laptops barely making any motions and refusing anything to us.
This music feels starved. On one hand, it isn’t an intense enough exploration of sound to justify its minimalism (like Stars of the Lid) and on the other hand its failure to have a groove or melody that would make this more palpable (like Monolake) means that the album really drags on. “Skodde” and “Valldal” do a pretty good job of mixing field recordings, ambiance, and brief melodies. However, the rest of it comes together as a gray mass.
