fri 06/12/2024

Nordic music

Album: Møster! - Springs

Springs begins cooking with “Spaced Out Invaders - Part I Quirks,” its fourth track. A spindly, rotating guitar figure interweaves with clattering percussion and pulsating electric bass. Around three minutes in, a sax – which, until this point, has...

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Album: Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal - Catching Fire

Just before the five-minute point, a Mellotron’s distinctive string sound is heard. Three minutes earlier, a guitar evokes Robert Fripp’s characteristic shimmer. Uniting these might result in King Crimson but, instead, these are just two elements of...

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Hough, Philharmonia, Rouvali, RFH review - where the wild things are

This autumn, the Philharmonia’s “Nordic Soundscapes” season promises music suffused with the epic vistas, and weather, of high latitudes, along with reflections on the climate crisis as it threatens the traditional bonds between nature and culture....

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Music Reissues Weekly: Shadowplay - Touch and Glow, Eggs & Pop

Some pointers suggest how Finland’s Shadowplay might sound. They took their name from a Joy Division song. Their key founder member was Brandi Ifgray – born Visa Ruokonen. He had been in the final line-up of first-generation Finnish punk band Ratsia...

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Album: Pom Poko - Champion

The musical equivalent of a firework display, the third album from Norwegian art-poppers Pom Poko is bright, energised and unstoppable. It is also considered; clearly the culmination of a careful creative process. Fusing the spontaneous and the...

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Album: Mari Kvien Brunvoll & Stein Urheim with Moskus - Barefoot in Bryophyte

Barefoot in Bryophyte is a collaboration between musicians embedded in Norway’s jazz and experimental music scenes. Some of it, though, sounds nothing like what might be expected. Take the fourth track, “Paper Fox.” Figuratively, it lies at the...

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Vossa Jazz 2024 review - Norwegian festival embraces William Parker’s spaciness, Karin Krog’s classicism and much more

“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as “William Parker, bass” – is firm about the designation under which the three musicians on stage are...

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Albums of the Year 2023: Cécile McLorin Salvant - Mélusine

If Mélusine is encountered without knowing its background or themes it would still be remarkable. There is no need to know anything about what frames this journey through Chanson Française, electronica, jazz and show-tune sensibilities with lyrics...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Osmo Lindeman - Electronic Works

For Finnish composer Osmo Lindeman, the decision to pursue electronic music was made in 1968 during a visit to Poland. He had recently started using graphical notation for the scores of his compositions and was having problems getting conductors and...

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Hardanger Musikkfest 2023 review - fertility, folk music and the supernatural unite along Norway’s fjords

The cows are scattered across the mountains. Without scrambling up the slopes, the only way to summon them is to call. Unni Løvlid is beckoning them. Instead of standing outdoors she is in the medieval Ullensvang Church, in the Norwegian village of...

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Julie Byrne, Juni Habel, Kings Place review - finely tuned evening balancing dark with light

It’s probably an unconscious action. Sat on a stage-centre chair, Julie Byrne sings. The two acoustic guitars she plays for about half the set are beside her, on their racks. One hand is above the other, palms down. Each moves side-to-side in a...

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Album: Susanna - Baudelaire & Orchestra

After his death in 1867, it didn’t take long for Charles Baudelaire’s poems to be set to music. Composer Henri Duparc did so in 1870, but Claude Debussy’s late 1880s framing of five of the Symbolist pioneer’s verses confirmed this as more than a one...

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