08/04/25 prosthetic sentiments 11 – Svarte Greiner

Svarte Greiner, presented at Boundary Condition .10 in IKLECTIK Art Lab. Svarte Greiner is the solo guise of Berlin based Norwegian Erik K Skodvin (of Deaf Center & B/B/S). Working mostly with darkly painted soundscapes through bowed guitar, effect-pedals and a varied sound making tools, his music and live performance can be seen as something of a time stopping cinematic experience, embodied by surreal peaks of guitar improvisations, sound effects & low rumbling drones.

Working otherwise with soundscapes both for visuals, film and as inspirations for his own record label Miasmah, he attempts to purvey something of a timeless and honest sound merging melancholy with horror. Erik is known for starting the Acoustic Doom genre back in 2006 through the Type Records released debut album "Knive". He has also toured and worked with a broad selection of varied artists, from Fever Ray to Johann Johannson, Nils Frahm, Andrea Belfi & Aaron Moore to name a few.

“This was my first Svarte Greiner gig in London since 2011(!). SG gigs is always improvised and is about capturing the moment, place, and setting to create something hypnotic and otherworldly, hopefully setting both myself and the audience in a trance state. I use whatever instrument I get and run it through my pedal setup to see what happens. This time I got a cello, which I mixed with electronics from my Miasmachine device as well as a fuzz tone soundbox (both by Macumbista). On this rather cool Sunday evening in November, everything dragged out quite a bit, as there was many acts on before me and the soundcheck had taken quite some extra time. I ended up sitting outside in the garden with two fans who kept buying me beer. We had some very interesting & deep conversations and I got completely lost in it, as well as rather drunk… Then suddenly Alaa came over to me and told me It was my turn to play. I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to perform, and just had to jump straight into it. What came out was rather crazy at parts, which I guess also reflected my state of mind. The venue had an incredible setup of speakers hanging all over the ceiling. It was an epic end to a very interesting evening. This sadly also ended up being one of the last events at the great IKLECTIK venue in London, who closed shortly after. I´m grateful to have been able to perform there. Thank you Alaa & IKLECTIK.”

Erik - Svarte Greiner

cerpintxt.com/boundarycondition
miasmah.com/recordings/svarte_greiner
iklectik.org