WHEN-DEATH IN THE BLUE LAKE, LP, 1988, NORWAY

Though his baroquely ornate latter day psych pop confections might put you more in mind of XTC circa Oranges & Lemons, there was a time when the sounds emanating from Norwegian Lars Pedersen were far from sunshine-y. Circa the late 80's and akin to his contemporaries in Famlende Forsok, Pedersen's work frequently exhibited an almost theatrical sense of bleakness. Laden with obscure samples and orchestral colorations, there's little wonder as to why Death In The Blue Lake would serve as a template for a certain kinda post-Black Metal experimental navel gazing and indeed, this album is the stuff of legend amongst the cognoscenti of such stuff; its thickly atmospheric and malevolent title track which occupies all of side A being shrouded with a veil of orchestral doom thick enough to cut with a knife and conveyed via mellotron flutes, doomed choirs shackled in the basement and a the kind of minor key orchestral ichor that flows through the veins of Peter Frohmader's compositions. It is however an album of almost schizophrenic contrasts, with much of the flip suggesting paths he'd later pursue after his technicolor re-invention, albeit wrought in steelier shades at this early date, with some of this material evoking the kind of mutated and world music-inflected prog pop structures later heard on Japan bassist Mick Karn's solo albums.


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