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The venerable composer and keyboardist St\u00e5le Storl\u00f8kken follows up his previous Hubro release (and solo debut recording), The Haze of Sleeplessness, with a second solo album performed entirely on pipe organ and recorded\u00a0at Steinkjer Church by Stian Westerhus.<\/p>\n
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While the Norwegian Grammy-nominated ‘The Haze of Sleeplessness’ used a whole keyboard-museum\u2019s worth of antique synths and contemporary digital software to create its vast array of sounds, everything on \u2018Ghost Caravan\u2019 is the product of one organ\u2019s pedals, pipes and sonic plumbing.<\/p>\n
\u201dThere\u2019s not so much of a relationship to \u2018Haze\u2019”, says St\u00e5le Storl\u00f8kken of the new album. \u201cThat album was more based on improvised ideas that were tweaked and arranged, while this one is all improvised with almost no editing at all. Everything you hear is from the church organ, with no additional instruments. The basic concept of the record, and the arrangement of the titles and pieces, is done in such a way that they alternate between a fluent, \u201con the move\u201d, abstract mood and a more recognisable, concrete and grounded mood. At the same time it should be so open that listeners will hopefully have their own unique experience. The organ at Steinkjer is not a big organ but it has some really nice sounds, with a number of quirks and mechanical eccentricities that suit my music.\u201dThe organ is partly a reconstruction based on a Wagnerorganin Nidarosdomen built originally in 1741, the organ is housed in the strikingly modernistic Steinkjer kirke, designed by Olav S. Platou in 1965, and featuring glass panels by the artist Annar Millidahl .<\/p>\n
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What Ghost Caravan does share with its predecessor is a seemingly limitless acoustic space for the listener\u2019s imagination to roam in, with Storlokken creating a cavernous cathedral of sound. The audio dynamics span an enormous range, capable of stretching from the quietest breathy whisper to a basso profundo squawk or scream, sometimes within seconds of each other. Similarly, the incredible variety of sounds that Storl\u00f8kken coaxes from the organ can defy rational analysis, with the resolutely analogue instrument appearing to echo the industrial, found-sounds of clanking machinery or buzzing electronics that one might expect to encounter through digital sampling or the tape-based experiments of musique concrete. As recorded in situ by star guitarist Stian Westerhus, mixed at Heaven Hill Studio by Storl\u00f8kken himself, and mastered by Helge Sten at Audio Virus Lab, \u2018Ghost Caravan\u2019 is like an audio junkie\u2019s dream test-recording, with a mile-high dynamic frequency and a disconcertingly transparent fidelity to the grainy textures of the organ\u2019s wheezing breath and clunky gear-changes. Over ten separate improvised pieces which connect into an informal suite through the repetition of key elements and sequential titles (with four \u2018Spheres\u2019 and four \u2018Cloudlands\u2019, plus \u2018Ghost Caravan\u2019 and \u2018Drifting on Wasteland Ocean\u2019), Storl\u00f8kken has made a strikingly unified, self-referential aesthetic world that can stand as a true work of art.<\/p>\n
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Unlike the occasional sci-fi references and retro-futurist sounds on \u2018The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019, which could put one in mind of electronic film scores from \u2018Forbidden Planet\u2019 to \u2018Blade Runner\u2019, \u2018Ghost Caravan’ has no obvious thematic line or narrative thread. It\u2019s easy, however, to imagine the spectral presence of a phantom silent cinema organ-accompanist as one listens. The inevitable subjective associations with film might also stretch from the silent era to cult horror hits such as \u2018Carnival of Souls\u2019 or \u2018The Abominable Dr Phibes\u2019, which feature organs and organists. But perhaps the most relevant analogy for \u2018Ghost Caravan\u2019 lies with the celebrated tradition of improvising organists at the church of Sacre-Coeur in Paris, where organists such as Rolande Falconelli, Naji Hakim and Daniel Roth have specialised in exploring the potential of the church\u2019s great organ through spontaneous composition.With a recording career dating back to 1991, St\u00e5le Storlokken (born 1969) is one of the most prolific and eclectic figures in Norwegian jazz and experimental music. He has longstanding musical relationships with a host of artists, from Terje Rypdal and Arve Henriksen to the bands Supersilent, Motorpsycho and Elephant9<\/p>\n
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The venerable composer and keyboardist St\u00e5le Storl\u00f8kken follows up his previous Hubro release (and solo debut recording), The Haze of Sleeplessness, with a second solo album performed entirely on pipe organ and recorded at Steinkjer Church by Stian Westerhus.<\/p>\n