Spezialmaterial (SM013CD008 )
2004


PRESS REVIEWS:

This superb debut from Icelander Gisli Thor Gudmundsson is a small masterpiece of abstract, deep sea Techno, recalling the golden moments of 90s Intelligent Dance Music as purveyed by Autechre and Ken Ishii.
Traject displays the same uncanny sleight of hand, his music constantly folding itself into new shapes, particularly on the extraordinary "Path".

The whole album is faboulously produced - there's an immense sonic depth and range on display in these pieces, a hyperreal opulence that makes for an experience almost too delicous to indulge in without feeling quilty
-- Keith Moliné, THE WIRE (issue 244, june 2004)

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Með þessari frumraun sinni hefur Gísli Þór Guðmundsson skotist í fremstu röð íslenskra raftónlistarmanna. Hljóðaheimur hans er fjölskrúðugur og hugmyndaflugið óstöðvandi. Þessi plata hans er ekkert léttmeti en á henni talsvert af músík sem ætti að falla flestum raftónlistarvinum í geð.
- Árni Matthíasson, Morgunblaðið, 5 stjörnur

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Album Of The Week on Boomkat (April 2004)

The emphasis here is on robust, icy, deeply icelandic electronic fragmentation, inevitably bringing to mind Autechre at their most condensed. "Water For Muddy People" unfolds and opens the set with aquatic emphasis, slowed-up layers of percussion that take their time settling down with a discernable groove, a cacophony of drenched noises and soundscaping making for a hypnotic, trance-like listen through digital oceans of sound. "Chkal" is killer - a rotating snap of shattered beats and hammered strings orchestrated in the darkest tradition of IDM - a squashed haze of melody and beats littered with a sparing scatter of voice and distant MC rhymes. Awesome.
Fans of Autechre's EP7 and the more dancefloor focused Gescom will find much to admire here - Spezial material continues to build its impressive and highly collectable catalogue. Deep.
-- boomkat.com

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"Laroche & Dolson", Gisli Thor Gudmundsson’s Traject contribution to the recent Ai compilation Station, certainly impresses as an accomplished example of cold Icelandic IDM, but it hardly prepares one for the incredible peak that is Strengir Hrynja. It’s about as perfect an example of dark, claustrophobic IDM as might be imagined, an uncompromising work that echoes Autechre’s EP7 in experimental spirit but advances beyond it to inhabit an even more challenging and abstract territory. Even better, its six textural soundscapes weigh in at a perfect forty minutes, with one track a remix from fellow Icelanders Einoma.

The album opens with the stunning “Water For Muddy People” which packs a most astonishing amount of detail into its eight-minutes. Gudmundsson fashions a slow, lurching pebbly groove showered by spindly alien tentacles, phantom voices and creaking reverberations. It introduces a signature Traject effect, criss-crossing bouncing ball rhythms of thrumming clatter. The mood is hypnotic, heavy, and submersive, as the listener gets sucked into the track’s nightmarish undertow. “She Said” maintains the peak level with a portentous opening of bass plucks and machine hum that segues into a congealing funk beat of throbs, squalls, and seizure-induced pinball beats. The piece approximates the sound of synapse firings magnified a thousandfold, or perhaps machines choking on themselves, their guts spewing forth. Incredibly, “Chkal” matches the quality of the opening tracks with a steamrolling clipped beat so massive it sounds like it might decimate anything in its path; majestic themes declaim above while shreds of voices and howls litter the snapping beat. “Path” is a more elastic construction which, in spite of its abstract soundscaping, exudes a funereal mood. In this case, thrumming bass plucks and bouncing ball patterns entropically expire amidst wheezing exhalations and electrical shimmer. A clacking beat occasionally rises to its surface, giving it some semblance of regularity, but is almost drowned out by garbling and distant voices. The set ends with “She Said (Einoma remix)” but there’s little disruption in continuity as the remix’s dense arrangement of metallic clangings, brooding strings, and percussive pops doesn’t noticeably deviate from the Traject style.
Strengir Hrynja represents a peak for Traject but also for the relatively new Zurich label Spezial Material. Certainly it’s indebted to Autechre and Gescom for its general style but Gudmundsson boldly pushes the album into an even more challenging realm of cold, abstract IDM. Listening to it, one marvels at its construction, while being simultaneously awed by its alien sonic universe.
-- Stylus Magazine (Rating: B+)

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Now this is scary.
A 40 minute mix of new material from Icelander Gisli Thor Gudmundsson aka Traject, ‘Stengir Hrynja’ impressively veers away from the more typical fluffy sounds that his fellow countrymen often produce, towards an ominous drop of the dark electro stuff. Not too surprising to learn then that his label are disciples of the Skam school of beats, and a close kinship to their most infamous siblings Autechre is strongly resident here. Yet this has much more about it than recent AE projects; more melody, less mechanics, more memorable. It’s intense and not a little claustrophobic, the equivalent of music making walls close in all around you.
Sometimes it’s good to be afraid.
-- Ian Fletcher, LOGO Magazine

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'Chkal' was featured on the popular BBC1 Radio show Breezeblock with Mary Anne Hobbs

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If you fancy yer beats more scuzzy, like sleepy Autechre being dragged through a malfunctioning electronic hedge backwards, then Spezial Materials have kindly unleashed this here CD/LP by Traject, snappily titled 'Strengir Hrynja'. Dark & crunchy stuff indeed. Stretched beats & sinister atmospherics make this one for fans of Team Doyobi & the more disturbing end of IDM.
-- normanrecords.com