TREPANERINGSRITUALEN – THE TOTALITY OF DEATH (ALPHA + OMEGA)

2x CD, https://coldspring.co.uk/

If there is one project in the world that deserves to carry the phrase ‘rituals’ in its name, it’s the Dutch Swedish Trepaneringsritualen. For those who, strangely enough, have never heard of it up until now, from the opening sounds of “Alpha”, you feel a cold dead hand around your throat, which stops you from breathing. And with each minute of the track, you are limited more and more in your movement and thinking until that full hour has passed, and all you can think as of that moment is, “What the actual f*ck happened just now …”

Thomas Ekelund, I’ve known for many years, and with his first project, Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, he already had some magic in the textures he created. Absolute great minimalist sounds worth checking out if you like your drone ultra minimal and creepy. ‘Back then already’ I am writing down with a big grin. And then the other guy in Trepaneringsritualen, none other than Peter Johan Nijland, known for a.o. Norn, and being a Blitzkrieg Baby, Distel, O Saala Sakraal and Volksweerbaarheid member. Peter knows his sounds, production and composition perfectly. And I don’t know how those two guys met, but when those first recordings were released in 2008, the impact was effin huge. A bearded guy with blood on his face shows what the inside of hell sounds like. And afterwards, you find out it’s a collective from another guy who keeps getting into your music collection somehow …

So Cold Spring releases two albums at the same time, “Alpha” and “Omega”, the beginning and the end. Rest assured, this has nothing to do with beginnings or endings; these two are very well-compiled albums of some hard-to-get-older material combined with a couple of unreleased tracks. So this one is a) for the completionists, b) for the fans and c) for fans-to-be to get an overview of the many faces of this project. Nowadays, you won’t buy a sampler CD anymore because there is one track you want to hear/have. And a double 7″ in a box set limited to 5 copies … One can only dream of owning objects like that, so it’s a good thing those tracks are now available on CD to play in the comfort of your environment. And don’t forget those gnarly cassette-only releases while you simply DO NOT HAVE a cassette deck. These albums are for all of you and I doubt you will find a ‘bad’ track on here.

There are some collaborations (special compliments for “Åkallan: Sunna” with Aether / Jonas Lindgren – deeeeep), a few covers, one from Coil and one from TMLHBAC, some CDR-only releases, some digital-only releases, that previously mentioned double 7″ in 5 copies and it’s total on 2 hours (and 1 minute). I’m looking forward to seeing them perform in August in Stockholm.