VIVA BLACK Featuring GRETLI AND HEIDI - Mal Sirine
Kopasetic Productions: KOPACD052
Viva Black - Filip Augustson: double bass; Eva Lindal: violin; Christopher Cantillo: drums
Gretli and Heidi - Catharina Backman, Carin Blom: glass harp, glass bells and bowls, bottles, voice
Recorded June 7th and 8th 2016 at Kapellet, Stockholm.
The duo Gretli and Heidi play assorted glass instruments that they rub and strike to produce gently chiming tones. In these pieces, the role of the sounds made using glass in this way is much the same as that of electronic effects used by other groups. However, the coolness of glass gives the sounds an ethereal quality that carries a life of its own, and that provides a perfect counterpoint to the warmth of the string instruments. Across the pieces, Augustson plays a muscular jazz bass which is accompanied by Lindal’s mix of classical and folk violin playing. In places, like Ein Bisschen Schmerz (A little pain, track 7) the mix of swinging bass under jaunty violin has an air of klezmer or East European traditional music. In other places, the rattling, clanking, tinkling creates a mix of sounds that are not always easy to associate with a specific instrument, but which nevertheless constantly intrigues. The long opening track, Mal Sirine (precious home), begins with violin and glass bowls creating similar notes, weaving this into a set of chords under which a loping bass line gradually leads the percussion. The set closes with violin and glass instruments playing in unison, and producing sounds not unlike the high notes of a church organ.
As well as playing glass instruments, Gretli and Heidi provide vocal accompaniment, particularly in the third part of the short R1 suite (which ends with a yodel fest). R1 is the name of Sweden’s first nuclear reactor at the Royal Technical University in Stockholm, and the location where the piece was first played. Each part of this suite reflects the processes when an atom bomb detonates (just the sort of thing to listen to when you are sitting above a reactor, even if it is decommissioned) – first thermal radiation, second a shock wave and third intense thermal winds. For each part, different glass objects are used to create the themes.
The combining of classical and folk sounds with a jazz ethos, played with the unusual and ethereal sounds produced by glass instruments, creates an unusual set of pieces in a genre-crossing collection. In his press release, Augustson notes that ‘sounds never previously conceived will be assured when glass harp, bottles, bowls and plates resonate together with violin, the bass and drums’. The end result is, as he also notes, delightful.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Kopasetic Productions: KOPACD052
Viva Black - Filip Augustson: double bass; Eva Lindal: violin; Christopher Cantillo: drums
Gretli and Heidi - Catharina Backman, Carin Blom: glass harp, glass bells and bowls, bottles, voice
Recorded June 7th and 8th 2016 at Kapellet, Stockholm.
The duo Gretli and Heidi play assorted glass instruments that they rub and strike to produce gently chiming tones. In these pieces, the role of the sounds made using glass in this way is much the same as that of electronic effects used by other groups. However, the coolness of glass gives the sounds an ethereal quality that carries a life of its own, and that provides a perfect counterpoint to the warmth of the string instruments. Across the pieces, Augustson plays a muscular jazz bass which is accompanied by Lindal’s mix of classical and folk violin playing. In places, like Ein Bisschen Schmerz (A little pain, track 7) the mix of swinging bass under jaunty violin has an air of klezmer or East European traditional music. In other places, the rattling, clanking, tinkling creates a mix of sounds that are not always easy to associate with a specific instrument, but which nevertheless constantly intrigues. The long opening track, Mal Sirine (precious home), begins with violin and glass bowls creating similar notes, weaving this into a set of chords under which a loping bass line gradually leads the percussion. The set closes with violin and glass instruments playing in unison, and producing sounds not unlike the high notes of a church organ.
As well as playing glass instruments, Gretli and Heidi provide vocal accompaniment, particularly in the third part of the short R1 suite (which ends with a yodel fest). R1 is the name of Sweden’s first nuclear reactor at the Royal Technical University in Stockholm, and the location where the piece was first played. Each part of this suite reflects the processes when an atom bomb detonates (just the sort of thing to listen to when you are sitting above a reactor, even if it is decommissioned) – first thermal radiation, second a shock wave and third intense thermal winds. For each part, different glass objects are used to create the themes.
The combining of classical and folk sounds with a jazz ethos, played with the unusual and ethereal sounds produced by glass instruments, creates an unusual set of pieces in a genre-crossing collection. In his press release, Augustson notes that ‘sounds never previously conceived will be assured when glass harp, bottles, bowls and plates resonate together with violin, the bass and drums’. The end result is, as he also notes, delightful.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
