Sart is the debut full-length cd from Norwegian duo Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik and Rune Sagevik, collectively known as Pjusk. First heard on 12k’s Blueprints (12k1039) compilation, Pjusk’s sound can be characterized as warm, dark, delicate, and wet. Sart builds a cavernous scape that listens like a surreal storybook, utilizing a combination of electronics, dub, rhythm, found sounds such as tape machine noise, fans, and ski lifts as well as field recordings from around the world. It is in their inspiration from very human events, such as private conversations, empty rooms, or smells, that gives Pjusk’s music a strangely familiar yet very disconnected and alien mood. They are very interested in the presence or disappearance of man and mankind’s impact on nature, building on this dichotomy of tension as they create their work.
Difficult to immediately classify, Pjusk carry on the organic and tonal tradition of 12k’s recent output but twist it into darker and more narrative territory. Sart is a beautifully produced debut that clearly carves out the artists’ own niche in electronic music.
Pjusk is a duo from the westcoast of Norway. Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik started doing electronic music in the early nineties techno scene and layed live around the country with the Neural Network band. A dozen releases have since appeared both solo and in various bands. Most prominently the Circular project which relased several acclaimed albums on the same label as the Biosphere work of that era. Rune Andre Sagevik was an early party promoter way out in the vividly beautiful countryside in the deep fjords. He started doing electronic music a decade ago. The Pjusk project began when Jostein many years later heard one of these tracks on the radio. He liked it so much that he made contact with Rune and a fruitful, productive collaboration started in 2005. In the two years that have passed they have released work on compilations and their debut cd Sart, on 12k in New York.
