Martina Testen / Simon Šerc – ‘Nokturno’ – Pharmafabrik Recordings
Some field‑recording projects try to soothe you- those old hat/New Age faffing about that convinced those who lived on the muesli belt that a groaning whale was good for your aura. Others are more fun, though often feel unconvincing – cannibal tribes supposedly mid-ritual, but sounding rather more like they were recording in a cosy studio in Wandsworth. ‘Nokturno’ doesn’t bother. Across eight movements – Sunset through Dawn – Martina Testen and Simon Šerc present the forest at night with a kind of matter‑of‑fact intensity that refuses to romanticise anything. It’s John Cage in a forest with the lights off – the silence is deafening.
And this isn’t a weekend wander with a laptop. ‘Nokturno’ is the result of ten years spent capturing as many nocturnal animals as possible across Central Europe, deep in the woods, out in meadows, and along the edges of forests where wildlife brushes up against human settlement. Italy and Slovenia form the project’s backbone, and you can hear that geographical spread in the sheer variety of voices: the familiar, the uncanny, and the outright inexplicable.
The first thing that hits you is the precision. These are high‑resolution recordings, but they’re not polished into cinematic ambience. They’re left raw enough that you can feel the air pressure shift between species. Frogs pulse in the half‑light, insects click like faulty circuitry, owls cut through the mix with the confidence of animals that don’t need to perform for anyone. The stereo field is used like a map rather than a mood board, becoming frequently disorienting with expected rhythms skittering across the stillness with scant regard for metronomes, and otherworldly honking and blooping emanating from what seems like a mad bastard clock.
What keeps the album compelling is its refusal to impose narrative. The transitions between the eight sections feel natural because they are natural: the forest doesn’t care about your sense of structure. Yet the sequencing still builds a kind of tension. Nightfall and Midnight in particular have a density that borders on claustrophobic, not because anything dramatic happens, but because the sheer volume of activity forces you to confront how busy the dark actually is. You might expect this in the jungles of Africa and South America, but Europe?
Frogs sound like birds; birds sound like locusts; cows sound like elephants. Are there cows at midnight in the forests of Europe? Maybe not. Maybe they are elephants. There are other sounds which sound like things rejected by foley artists for sounding too alien and terrifying. It’s not cold, but it’s definitely unsentimental. The night is presented as a system: territorial negotiations, warnings, mating calls, and opportunistic movements. Some things are doubtless dying, but it sounds like they’re more alive than we’ll ever be. The emotional resonance comes from the accumulation of detail rather than any attempt to steer your feelings.
Šerc’s mixing is almost invisible, which is exactly the point. There’s no smoothing, no atmospheric padding, no attempt to “heighten” the environment. The edits are minimal, the pacing unhurried. You’re not being led through the night; you’re being left in it. The album trusts you to sit still long enough for your ears to adjust.
By the time Dawn arrives, it doesn’t feel like a triumphant return of light. It’s simply the next condition. The night doesn’t resolve; it just recedes. What lingers is the sense that you’ve been allowed to overhear something that wasn’t meant for you, not in a mystical way, but in a biological one.
‘Nokturno’ is a reminder that field recordings don’t need to be therapeutic or mystical to be absorbing. Sometimes the most compelling thing an artist can do is get out of the way and let the world run on its own terms.
Daz Lawrence