Where were we? Nowhere near any red bats or red squirels or printer’s deadline dates or getting stuck in anymore time loops and the albums pile up and pecks peck on and on and whatever you do, don’t quote us on anything though.
Here’s some more albumsd that have come our way recently, we’re looking for the different things, not the generic same as all the other thing things…
Diket – Diket I Solen I Diket (Supertraditional) – This is a gorgeous album, a just released debut album from an Oslo based quartet called Diket. Diket I Solen I Diket is a find blend of glowing folk, of tradition and very Scandinavian experimental not-quite-pop. The four of them really do glow, it is a delight and so beautifully voiced (mostly) by Levina Storåkern. No idea what she’s singing about, you get the feeling that whatever it is it is rather positive, rather hopeful. The playing itself, like the voices, is very easy on the ear; poetic, economic, not quite fragile (rather strong actually), an almost easy listening coming together of traditional instruments, melodic ideas, something crafted, something woven with contemporary colours and flavours, something that is just a delight whilst at the same time something that comes with just the right amount of depth or weight. Something rather different…
Dead Rat Orchestra – Broken Springs & Death Dances (Antigen) – Now this is worth a deeper dive than it first might appear to be worthy of, it kind out starts out sounding like it might be just another set of hipster sea shanty tunes, it is actually a lot lot more than that once you let South Sea Bubble flow by in an almost delightful flow until you tune in and catch on to all the hanging and drowning that going on and that’s where the death dances and a crafted album of 18th century execution ballads really starts to reveal itself:
“In October 2015, Godspeed You! Black Emperor invited Dead Rat Orchestra to open for them on the six-date UK leg of their European tour. The DRO performed as a duo of Robin Alderton and Nathaniel Mann, kicking up a ruckus that belied their numbers, with raucous renditions of songs from Tyburnia and their wider repertoire. At the Brighton Dome, they were joined onstage for the finale of their set by Thierry Amar of GY!BE, who played contrabass on The Black Procession, helping them to create what is arguably the definitive version of the standout track from their critically acclaimed Tyburnia soundtrack…”
This is an intriguing album, a rather dark album, it is also a very entertaining album (which I guess is kind of important). All the songs or pieces are traditional with arrangements and indeed delicious details added (or expanded on) by Dead Rat Orchestra – and it is deliciously detailed, the music shimmers at times, getting into areas that could be considered sound art. Smokey foggy drones, sometimes rousing, defiant, beautifully atmospheric: “Broken Springs & Death Dances is an album of 18th century execution ballads for 21st century professionals, exploring timeless themes of corruption, corporate greed and abuse of power, with songs about stock market manipulation and advice on how to end an inappropriate workplace relationship. This is a pro-quality desk recording captured on the final night of the tour….” And yes, it is a top quality recording, it doesn’t sound like just a desk recording to these ears, desk recordings can often lack atmosphere, this is dripping with it…
Rigla – Sendebud fra sandkassa (Diger) – This December 4th, Diger release Trondheim rising stars Rigla’s debut album, Sendebud fra sandkassa (Message From The Sandpit) on CD. The CD is an expanded version of their sold-out debut LP, released this Summer.
“The name Rigla comes from the Norwegian dialect word Riglafengje which in the Sunnmøre region means “unsteady” or “wobbly”, a reflection of the band’s balancing act between the fragile and the powerful, the traditional and the innovative. With a unique lineup of vocals, fiddle, saxophone, synth, cello, drums, and double bass, Rigla have created their own distinctive sound, where Norwegian traditional music, jazz, and pop merge into something new and unpredictable. The band consists of young musicians from different parts of Norway, with backgrounds from several of the country’s leading music academies (including the jazz line at NTNU, Trondheim, and folk at NMH, Oslo)”.
They certainly don’t feel wobbly or unsteady, they do rather sound like they’re balancing; balancing in the sunshine, they feel relaxed, it is very sunny, uplifting, almost breezy, never throwaway though, there’s depth in their delight. Rich, bright, warm, inviting… Bandcamp / other links
Ensemble neoN, Benedicte Maurseth – Always and Never the Same (Aurora Records) – The music on this album is apparently the result of a collaboration between Ensemble neoN and Hardanger fiddle player and composer Benedicte Maurseth. The first version of the piece was written in 2023 and performed as an audiovisual production during the Ultima Festival. The newly recorded version of the work is a reworked and recomposed version and as we have no idea about the original version, the festival or indeed the two parties involved in this rather earthy recording we can’t make comparisons to indeed any kind of informed comment.
“Particularly important to Maurseth is the exploration of repetition and the variations that can develop from the same theme. Together with Ensemble neoN, Maurseth has composed a new piece in which the exploration of the suggestive power of repetition is a central device. Maurseth and neoN have examined how the qualities of the Hardanger fiddle can be transferred to an expanded ensemble with its rich rhythmic, tonal, and timbrel palette. The soloist holds an important place in Norwegian folk music traditions, and the work makes room for each musician’s individual character” –
It is rather tranquil, rather refined, easy on the ear, gracefully moving in a time and space where nothing needs to be rushed, moving in a very contemporary way, the music of contented pelicans maybe? Music for a bee among blooms just walking through? You do get a sense of going somewhere, a gentle musical build, a progress, a suggestive power of repetition that never ever gets repetitive in an obvious way, it does gracefully move in the just the right kind of ways, that walk the bee takes is beautiful, the noise it walks through in intriguing… Bandcamp
Michaela Antalová, Adrian Myhr, Tøyen Fil og Klafferi – Sun’s Daughter (Aurora Records) – More from Oslo’s Aurora Records, a rather interesting label so it would seem.
This is minimalist, rewardingly so, a sparseness that allows a focus on every move, ever draw on a string, every flourish every breath the instrument(s) take; “The fujara is a wind instrument that was developed by shepherds on the mountain slopes of central Slovakia. Often characterised by a serene timbre and strange yet carefully sculpted melodies, the fujara entertained shepherds in solitude while they tended their flocks. During the winter months, it resonated in communal gatherings held in shepherds’ huts and village taverns. The wood for a new instrument was likewise harvested in winter, when it was free of resin”
“Michaela Antalová searches for points of continuity for the instrument and its extinct places of origin. A contemporary fujarist, percussionist, and composer, Antalová has curated and performed in projects that reposition the fujara in new contexts, foregrounding its strongest features as well as its technical demands: airy, unsettled tones that provide rich textures and a tight acoustic balance within ensemble music” and we do have to thank Dominika Moravčíková for these words shared here in aid of the signpost pointed towards this rather rewarding album that’s sounding especially good today in the Autumn sunshine of an East London morning (I have been coming back to this album again and again over the last month or so). Read more of Dominika’s informative text on the Bandcamp page, Dominika can tell you while I just enjoy the way this nightingale is painting things so well. These do sound like paintings, those sounds do sound like rapid brush movements, sometimes fluid, sometimes jarring, always engaging, inviting, some of it classically soothing, some of it forwardly experimental, some of it brings the recent Lauren Brown paintings. Something about the decisions made and where the sounds are placed, far more economy here with the sounds than with Lauren Brown’s paint; that slow build up that takes us thought Zbohom Javorina (Ha det Rogntre) is particularly painterly…
“Her newest work, Sun’s Daughter, embraces the friction between modern string instruments (Bendik Foss – viola, Tove Margrethe Erikstad – violoncello, Adrian Myhr – double bass) and wind instruments from older traditions: the baroque traverso flute (Hanne Jones Rekdal) and the fujara (Michaela Antalová). Through a personal and intimate relationship with the instrument that reaches beyond its historical contexts and playing styles, Michaela Antalová maps an emotional geography of places and moments, echoed in the titles of the tracks. The slight divergence of the fujara’s pitch from the general equal-tempered system is resolved through reciprocal tuning adjustments, allowing the fujara to retain some of its intonational idiosyncrasy, reminiscent of its original pastoral coloratura”…
Hey look, I have my own paint to throw, there’s a printers deadline is rushing towards us and this Michaela Antalová is out today, you need to go spend time with this music as well as all the other we keep telling you are worth your time, this one is particularly good on a sunny Autumn morning when the light is just right… Bandcamp
Here’s a Finn Loxbo film and piece of music, something from an album I never got around to saying anything about when it came out back in September…
Finn Loxbo – Lummernikt (Fönstret) – “Lummer is the Swedish name for the now protected family of vascular plants (Clubmoss/Lycopodiaceae). Lummer grows slowly and the spores with which it reproduces can take 12—20 years to develop. These spores, known as Nikt in Swedish, were once ground into an extremely flammable light yellow “old woman’s gunpowder” that was used for early theatrical pyrotechnics. Volatile and explosive, Lummernikt requires careful handling.
There is something of the small scale dangerous in Finn Loxbo’s Lummernikt, too. A not-at-all-risk-free traversal at the limits of technique: building, blowing up and working through a band’s worth of harmonic scaffolding….”
Here’s the album on Bandcamp and yes, it should have been reviewed ort at least writen about back in September, you don’t need our words though, you just need our signposts and this one is surely better late than never. Do like the was that guitar works like churchbells, all kinds of things going on here, Nordic flavours, African flavours….
