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CD
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BR 025CD
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Evergreen In Your Mind, the new and third album from Norwegian singer-songwriter Juni Habel, exists in two worlds at the same time. Songs were recorded in quiet corners of her home, on the piano in the school where she works, and it uses the physical world around her to provide percussion. It also takes place, as she herself attests, within a dream; an imagined place in which her desire for oneness with each other and the world is finally realized. Evergreen In Your Mind was recorded with co-producer Stian Skaaden. It is Habel's first album in three-years, following the breakthrough success of 2023's Carvings LP. Formed of eleven new recordings, the songs here remain delicate, with Habel's voice playing an elegant lead role. Small shifts in Habel's sound result in a notable stride forward. More focus went into the groove of these songs. Playfulness was embraced and, perhaps most importantly, patience played a fundamental role in shaping the album with time and care given to every element of these songs. The extra time that was given to the project gave Juni the space to nurture her creativity. She would read and listen to music, hike into the hills, place herself within nature and seek out stillness. Not as a deviation from her work but as a fundamental part of the process. It's a search for connection, and it's a recurring theme across Evergreen In Your Mind. The album's title-track and fist single feels indicative of this narrative. A gorgeous, delicate folk song, it finds Habel out in the woods, hiding from real life, caught in the space between the natural world and the pull of modernity. The album cover also adds shimmer: a striking photograph of Juni among the mountains, it was taken on a day trip to Rondane, a five-hour drive each way from her home.
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LP
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BR 025LP
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LP version. Evergreen In Your Mind, the new and third album from Norwegian singer-songwriter Juni Habel, exists in two worlds at the same time. Songs were recorded in quiet corners of her home, on the piano in the school where she works, and it uses the physical world around her to provide percussion. It also takes place, as she herself attests, within a dream; an imagined place in which her desire for oneness with each other and the world is finally realized. Evergreen In Your Mind was recorded with co-producer Stian Skaaden. It is Habel's first album in three-years, following the breakthrough success of 2023's Carvings LP. Formed of eleven new recordings, the songs here remain delicate, with Habel's voice playing an elegant lead role. Small shifts in Habel's sound result in a notable stride forward. More focus went into the groove of these songs. Playfulness was embraced and, perhaps most importantly, patience played a fundamental role in shaping the album with time and care given to every element of these songs. The extra time that was given to the project gave Juni the space to nurture her creativity. She would read and listen to music, hike into the hills, place herself within nature and seek out stillness. Not as a deviation from her work but as a fundamental part of the process. It's a search for connection, and it's a recurring theme across Evergreen In Your Mind. The album's title-track and fist single feels indicative of this narrative. A gorgeous, delicate folk song, it finds Habel out in the woods, hiding from real life, caught in the space between the natural world and the pull of modernity. The album cover also adds shimmer: a striking photograph of Juni among the mountains, it was taken on a day trip to Rondane, a five-hour drive each way from her home.
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BING 185LP
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"Push open the door of the old Norwegian school house in the rural hinterland Juni Habel shares with her close-knit family and climb the stairs and one will find oneself in a former classroom -- the home of her new album Carvings. Crafted seventeen years after guitar tuition would try to iron out the creases of her bohemian upbringing, it is a songbook of life's lessons offering an expansive perspective as it navigates personal shadows between darkness and light. Just as her more featherweight debut album All Ears would attest, the timelessness of Habel's music has evolved from her lived experiences. Growing up with six younger siblings alongside horses, hens, sheep and pigs on the family farm, she was a Forest School child. Today, little -- and a lot -- has changed since eschewing the city in favor of koselig-cohabiting with husband Emil, friend Isis, cat Lisa, dog Sajo. Living alongside them is Grandmother Inger, who gave Habel her first guitar aged ten and has always been a big influence on her life. This unyielding spirit of family and nature is etched into Carvings' unschooled approach. With beauty in mock-simplicity and radiating humanity like the music of Tia Blake, Julie Byrne or Myriam Gendron, Habel's songwriting unfolds on her own terms, and is the sound of facing whatever mother nature decides will find its way to the top of the list. Recorded between the classroom ('big hall'), the hallway on the second floor, and her bedroom with simple gear and vocals laid down in a single take, Habel extended an invitation to her musical family; husband Emil Nøjgaard Petersen (electric guitar), Sofie Mortvedt, Ellen-Martine Gismervik and Håkon Brunborg (strings) Thea Hernæs (drums) and uncle Sverre Thorstensen (double bass). Co-producer, musician and singer Stian Skaaden, became her melodic confidant and experimental co-conspirator, halving the burden by building the album's layers through blowing a pipe, playing bow on the banjo, bottles or glockenspiel. As Habel traces family, loss and grief, nature, love and music, be sure to remove one's shoes at the door; within each of Carvings' deepest cuts the warmest welcome awaits." "Meet Norway's new pastoral folk voice -- guitar lines ripple like Nick Drake strumming for Karen Dalton -- think Sibylle Baier or Julie Byrne." --Uncut
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