Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words' Warped Drone Is the Yin to Trepaneringsritualen's Yang

Swedish sound experimentalist Thomas Martin Ekelund has garnered much attention in the last couple years with his death industrial project Trepaneringsritualen. While this project’s immensity of sound and violent live history has been captivating audiences, it’s worth noting that Ekelund previously created elegantly depressing drone under the moniker Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words. With the recent success of Trepaneringsritualen, Cloister Recordings has decided to bless us all with a vinyl treatment of Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words’ album No Words, due to be released on Valentine’s Day.

At the start, No Words comes across with a shimmering and nostalgic energy, but things quickly take a turn towards overwhelming melancholy in such an organic way that it feels like the only possible outcome. Guitars are distorted and warped into endless expanses of single tones that seem to bleed into one another, echoing across a stark emptiness. In a sense, finding the shadow in every bright moment has always been Ekelund’s specialty. This offering from Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words gives a more direct and beautiful approach to a hazy, suicidal bleakness that has become the bread and butter of Trepaneringsritualen’s more rhythmic industrial approach.

If you’re ready to bliss out in the empty space between dreams and death, enjoy a stream of No Words in its entirety for your enjoyment while you wait for your copy to arrive in the mail.

Ben Handelman is finding the shadows on Twitter.