Joachim Nordwall & Aaron Turner – Malign Seeds
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Ash International
Metal mastermind Aaron Turner is back with his first release of 2026 and second collaboration with Swedish experimental musician Joachim Nordwall. Turner’s resumé includes foundational sludge bands like Isis, Old Man Gloom, and Sumac, as well as a myriad of other side projects in addition to founding both the Hydra Head and SIGE record labels. He and Nordwall first worked together on the Trepaneringsritualen album Kainskult in 2017, a project helmed by another prolific underground Swede, Thomas Martin Ekelund. Both Ekelund and Nordwall were new names to me before this past weekend’s release of Malign Seeds, but if any readers here are fans of the Swedish dark ambient and industrial scenes, it seems like these guys are already dungeonhold names to you.
I’ve been following Turner’s output for over fifteen years, and am always curious to see what he’s up to musically. Malign Seeds is not completely outside his wheelhouse, nor does it seem unfamiliar territory for Nordwall based on his prior work, but this album is nowhere near traditional or “normal” music otherwise. This is a 40-minute, intentionally obtuse sound collage that revels in its discomfort. There are no melodies, there are almost no lyrics, save for a few deeply growled passages from Turner on “Regulator,” “Longhead,” and “Barrow.” It’s a tense and anxious dirge, never letting the listener expect what sounds may come next or when. Moments on tracks like “The Bath” and the paired opening and closing chapters of “Henry” scratch the itch of the more difficult offerings from Turner’s albums with Sumac, or perhaps the droniest and left-field Boris projects.
With all that said, Malign Seeds isn’t an album to pick and choose certain tracks off of. The fact that the album has a track listing at all seems more like a vehicle to separate its movements, but it’s worth the experience of hearing it front-to-back in one sitting. Mind you, it’s a challenging sitting, but it’s definitely rewarding. Aaron Turner and Joachim Nordwall bringing this album to SFI Recordings for the US market is a great choice as its follows releases I’ve already enjoyed like Blood Incantation frontman Paul Riedl’s ambient dreamscape Ocean of Peace, and self-proclaimed “post-energetic music” group New Frontiers’ album (of) Inner Dimensions. If you’re a devotee of dark, avant-garde metal like BIG | BRAVE, The Body, or Sunn O))), then Malign Seeds should be an instant listen.
