ELLEN BODTKER / JAN ERIK VOLD - Someren der Ute
Losen LOS 150-2
Ellen Bodtker: acoustic and electric harp, e-bows, piano; Jan Erik Vold: voice; Arve Henriksen: trumpet,vocal, electronics; Eirik Raude: percussion and electronics.
The idea of reciting poetry against a musical background has long been a staple of avant garde jazz. To some extent this album could be seen in that tradition. However, rather than the frenetic declamations of Beat poetry, the poems here are wistful and yearning. The question of whether the music is intended to provide a background for the poems or whether the poems describe aspects of the music is not an easy one to address. Indeed, there is often an odd dissociation between the music and the recitation, as if they are pursuing parallel goals but not always in the same place. At times, the poems intruded a little too much on the music for my listening.
The genesis of the recording stems from a train journey that Bodtker and Vold made in Japan in 2013 when they were both on tour. Vold is an expatriate Norwegian living in Stockholm. In the 1960s he was a leading figure in the Profil magazine of the University of Oslo, which championed modernist poetry and literature. On this recording, his poems are a mixture of gnomic haiku and short parables. The translations (provided on the Losen website) give an impression of the themes (although reading them in English does not capture his presentation). For example, ‘Three drops of water’ (track 9) goes ‘Three drops of water / mirror the world upside down upside / down upside down’, and ‘Seven times up and eight time down’ (track 8) has the story ‘A man came down the road. Another man was lying in the ditch, he couldn’t get up. Help me up! cried the man in the ditch to the man on the road. The man on the road then stumbled into the ditch and placed himself side by side with the man who was already there. He who was there got up, and left.’
Around these words, Bodtker and Henriksen weave beautifully lilting themes. Two of the pieces quote directly from John Cage’s ‘In a Landscape’ and the pieces work more as soundscapes than tunes as such. The titles of the pieces reflect this, with 5 of the 18 pieces having the word ‘ocean’ in their title, and another 3 relating to water or weather. Bodtker’s harp playing (both electric and acoustic) is complemented by the use of a guitar effects device (the ebow) and electronic effects to echo and sustain sequences of notes. Henriksen’s trumpet playing conveys a whole suite of instruments, from wooden flutes to clarinet to trumpet, through his use of electronics and the ways in which he coaxes sounds from the instrument. To my ears, it is Henriksen’s playing that really brings this recording to life. The percussion of Raude provides a gentle accompaniment to the pieces, making use of cymbals, bells and brushes to provide a soft yet rhythmic pulse to the recording.
In the linear notes, Bodtker says that she and Vold were seeking to find kinship between the Haiku poems of Vold and the harp’s ‘Asian soundscapes’ to recall their journeys in Japan. Some of the trumpet playing and the percussion has an oriental flavour, but the pieces convey a stronger sense of Scandinavia and call to mind not only jazz but also classical composers whose symphonies captured landscapes of fjords and oceans.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Losen LOS 150-2
Ellen Bodtker: acoustic and electric harp, e-bows, piano; Jan Erik Vold: voice; Arve Henriksen: trumpet,vocal, electronics; Eirik Raude: percussion and electronics.
The idea of reciting poetry against a musical background has long been a staple of avant garde jazz. To some extent this album could be seen in that tradition. However, rather than the frenetic declamations of Beat poetry, the poems here are wistful and yearning. The question of whether the music is intended to provide a background for the poems or whether the poems describe aspects of the music is not an easy one to address. Indeed, there is often an odd dissociation between the music and the recitation, as if they are pursuing parallel goals but not always in the same place. At times, the poems intruded a little too much on the music for my listening.
The genesis of the recording stems from a train journey that Bodtker and Vold made in Japan in 2013 when they were both on tour. Vold is an expatriate Norwegian living in Stockholm. In the 1960s he was a leading figure in the Profil magazine of the University of Oslo, which championed modernist poetry and literature. On this recording, his poems are a mixture of gnomic haiku and short parables. The translations (provided on the Losen website) give an impression of the themes (although reading them in English does not capture his presentation). For example, ‘Three drops of water’ (track 9) goes ‘Three drops of water / mirror the world upside down upside / down upside down’, and ‘Seven times up and eight time down’ (track 8) has the story ‘A man came down the road. Another man was lying in the ditch, he couldn’t get up. Help me up! cried the man in the ditch to the man on the road. The man on the road then stumbled into the ditch and placed himself side by side with the man who was already there. He who was there got up, and left.’
Around these words, Bodtker and Henriksen weave beautifully lilting themes. Two of the pieces quote directly from John Cage’s ‘In a Landscape’ and the pieces work more as soundscapes than tunes as such. The titles of the pieces reflect this, with 5 of the 18 pieces having the word ‘ocean’ in their title, and another 3 relating to water or weather. Bodtker’s harp playing (both electric and acoustic) is complemented by the use of a guitar effects device (the ebow) and electronic effects to echo and sustain sequences of notes. Henriksen’s trumpet playing conveys a whole suite of instruments, from wooden flutes to clarinet to trumpet, through his use of electronics and the ways in which he coaxes sounds from the instrument. To my ears, it is Henriksen’s playing that really brings this recording to life. The percussion of Raude provides a gentle accompaniment to the pieces, making use of cymbals, bells and brushes to provide a soft yet rhythmic pulse to the recording.
In the linear notes, Bodtker says that she and Vold were seeking to find kinship between the Haiku poems of Vold and the harp’s ‘Asian soundscapes’ to recall their journeys in Japan. Some of the trumpet playing and the percussion has an oriental flavour, but the pieces convey a stronger sense of Scandinavia and call to mind not only jazz but also classical composers whose symphonies captured landscapes of fjords and oceans.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
