presage is an act of sonic foraging: shortwave radio transmissions and field recordings were collected around Helsinki, then assembled and transformed into two long-form pieces. Collecting radio brings with it a particular uncertainty, as signals may have travelled enormous distances before arriving stripped of their context and misted with static, interference and the imprint of atmospheric conditions; a field recording is a more certain and geographically secure material, however once removed from its site and placed beside these transmissions it too becomes unstable. Across presage, both kinds of material are treated as partial evidence of somewhere else, and the record feels to me like a worldbuilding exercise, familiar in its materials but somewhat otherworldly in the environment it creates.
lamberg described the work as static, haunting, droning and mysterious, utilising sounds that occupy uncertain contexts, and this quality is reflected closely in minja-milla ikonen’s accompanying poem, which moves through hum, skin, shoreline, sand, ribs, forest, asphalt and wind, allowing one sensation to pass into another in a way that feels akin to the shifting surface of miska’s composition. Its final suggestion that sounds are always presaging something else offers a useful description of lamberg’s method: a radio fragment points towards an absent broadcaster, a field recording towards a site that can no longer be entered through the recording alone, while a transformed sound points towards its source and away from it simultaneously.
I say less about this work than I might normally, as its atmosphere is summed up perfectly in the following stanzas, so I will let them speak for the work.
presage by minja-milla ikonen
hums against
along the outside
presaging beneath the skin
does it quicken or fall still
the sea breaks upon the small stones of the shore
as if it would wash over, but is only soft sand
tickling shoulders
pours down upon the surface
beneath it into small needle-pricks
until grows numb and fills the entire being
rumbles against ribs
they are seashell, an echo chamber
for listening to the hum
the forest carries it
on an oppressively weightless wind
that catches hair, the treetops
bending down to the roots
footsteps move branches
even though walking on asphalt
have you noticed
sounds lie, always presaging something else
miska lamberg is a sound artist and musician whose work reimagines the sounds of everyday environments through field recordings and recycled audio materials. Guided by attentive listening and a minimalist approach to editing, they assemble existing sounds into new contexts that reveal unexpected relationships between place, memory, and perception.
Released by Discreet Archive
Track listing:
1. I
2. II
Purchase:
Bandcamp
Credits
released October 2, 2026
Thanks to Jacob Calland, minja-milla ikonen, Cuci Nelli & Roosa Saarni.
Music by miska lamberg
Poem by minja-milla ikonen
Photo by Cuci Nelli
Mastered and liner notes by Jacob Calland
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