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CD
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PRO 392CD
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"Join veteran Norwegian ambient/electronic artist Erik Wøllo on a sonorous travelogue through daring, contrasting places and states of mind. Since the early '80s, Wøllo has created peerless electronic music, and Sojourns advances with nine captivating pieces. His 36th release is a sound-trip of bold and shimmering cycles of enduring, energizing music. Erik reflects: 'A sense of being somewhere for a moment, a Sojourn. That is what I work to achieve in my music. I explore the idea of sound as a place in time: how each composition on an album is a place to be with its own story to tell. I ask myself how it can affect a listener's perception. Creating an aesthetic that imbues an atmosphere which allows us the freedom to drift off into virtual mental wanderings. To stay there temporarily, and then move on to the next place, to the next piece of music. In a mind frame in which we experience psychological events, a continuous passage of existence. Where events pass from a state of future potential through the present to a state of past finality like a memory.' The first track 'Memory Waves' is a dwelling slow motion EBow intro that moves into 'Distant Thunder' with mounting percussion loops steadily energizing the listening space with guitar and synth strings keening through cavernous reverberation. The title track 'Sojourn' is a hypnotic and drifting rhythmic track with shifting themes and intervening patterns. A calmer mood comes out in selections like 'Gravity' and 'Peace Bells', again with a contemplative and authoritative soaring guitar EBow that leads the course ahead. The finale 'Still Water' has a more introverted and fragile form that shines with a soft tremulous light. All nine tracks possess a sense of drama, captivating as well as enigmatic, always Wøllo trademarks. Throughout, Wøllo maintains the feel of crossing a majestic landscape over the earth and beneath the stars. Images border on dreams within these seductive Sojourns. CD in four-panel digipak."
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2LP
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ABST 018LP
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Abstrakce Records present a reissue of Erik Wøllo's Silver Beach, originally released in 1987. Minimalistic electronic instrumental music from Scandinavia. Erik Wøllo is a unique Norwegian musician that has been active since 1980, covering a wide range of styles but mostly known for his very personal take on electronic ambient music. Silver Beach is his fourth album, and it meant a new direction in his compositions. Gentle rhythms hold center for lush beautiful melodies to unfold, manifesting a restrained elegance in the way the chords hover around this percolating heartbeat. The result is synthetic walkabout music, an album of simple yet vibrant sophistication, perfect for wandering around, or sitting contemplating imaginary beautiful vistas with eyes closed. These fifteen stunning tracks create a sense of ceaseless motion without arrival, the pleasure of travelling without destination: walking on an outer limits beach. An early electronic music masterpiece, it was made using the latest MIDI technology at that time. Everything was composed and recorded on the now vintage Roland MSQ700, and all the diverse synths and rack modules were mixed directly down to 2-track analog tape (no multitrack tape was used). The original Silver Beach album was released on vinyl on the Norwegian label Cicada Records in 1986. In 1988 the album was released on CD (also Cicada) and included the additional and very rhythmical tracks "Little Big Tune" and "Mountain Train." The album was also re-released on CD on the Spanish label Margen Records in 2005, remastered and fine-tuned with five additional previously unreleased tracks from the same era. This tunes just refuse to be forgotten, their glittering beauty having both an air of nostalgia, but also of validity, as they continue to haunt new ears. There's no doubt that this is a classic of European eighties electronic music composition, a polished artwork with the best aesthetic and emotional signifiers of its era.
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