A story is told in Laurin Huber’s video for the elegant “Nickel”, a six-minute excursion of hissing tape loops, repetitive structures and subtle changes. What story, you ask? I don’t know exactly, but let me try to find an answer. In the EP’s liner notes, written by the artist, he paints a picture: “I am standing here as a passenger. My movement has been stopped – and so has my gaze. The fence came unexpectedly, even though I’ve been studying the lines on the map over and over.” The “here”, then, might indicate a location. It might indicate that the track’s title not only refers to the mineral, but also to a Russian monotown of the same name, close to the Norwegian and Finnish border. Coincidentally, it’s a town where many trees died while humankind dug and digs for the shiny silver metal. That’s what Wikipedia tells me. On second thought, this might not be a coincidence.
In the video to “Nickel”, we see maps, plans, and structural drawings. We also see photographs and moving images, assumingly taken on a train ride. And like on all train rides, it seems like sometimes the connection is lost. But for a connection that’s lost, others are found. Associatively, the video traces shapes and forms and puts into correlation the moving and still images, provoking a dialogue that might be easier to have in art than in life.
While we drift, my mind wanders: I think of the vastness of Russia and its proximity to Finland and Norway. Looking towards the other side of the country, it neighbors China, Mongolia and even North Korea. All these countries (and still nine more) share borders with Russia – and what else? I am pretty sure the blowing of the wind sounds the same, no matter who governs the soil. To quote Huber again, who writes in the liner notes: “’Here’ means one nation, ‘there’ another. Being in sound, such a separation seems odd.”
The EP Dog Mountain by Laurin Huber will be released on Hallow Ground on 25th June 2021.
