The Hubro label presents Norwegian percussionist Håkon Stene's Lush Laments For Lazy Mammal and improvising harmonium player Sigbjørn Apeland's Glossolalia.


HÅKON STENE

Håkon Stene (b. 1977) is a Norwegian percussionist specializing in contemporary music performance. In addition to performing in a variety of contexts throughout Europe, he is currently involved in artistic research and teaching at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

It is not necessary to take more than a quick glance at Norwegian percussionist Håkon Stene’s CV to realise that here is a musician with a broad horizon and a fearless attitude towards new instruments and genres. Stene has played folk music with Nils Økland and Benedicte Maurseth, electronica with Pantha de Prince and the Bell Laboratory, baroque music with Rolf Lislevand and contemporary music with asamisimasa, winner of a Spellemannspris (Norwegian Grammy).

"To me, this is a wonderfully pure distillation of what music can do". - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment - review of Lush Laments For Lazy Mammal

www.hakonstene.net/




SIGBJØRN APELAND

Sigbjørn Apeland (born 1966) is a Norwegian record producer, musician (organ, harmonium) and the only Norwegian to have obtained a doctorate in ethnomusicology. He is known for his distinctive mix of folk music, church music and improvised music. He works as an organist, and specialized in free jazz with the legendary British drummer John Stevens; he has contributed to numerous recordings with Nils Økland and Sigrid Moldestad, folk singers Åsne Valland Nordli, Berit Opheim Versto and Agnes Buen Garnås, jazz musicians Øyvind Skarbø, Per Jørgensen and Bjørn Kjellemyr, electronica innovators Alog and noise duo Golden Serenades, in addition to many others. He is a member of the trio 1982, but also records as a solo artist.

“The music developed through Apeland’s interplay with folk musicians, improvisers, and computer musicians and his own self-described attempt to create a form of “ambient acoustic music.” Such a description fails to capture how lovely the album’s five improvised settings are, however, and how powerfully emotional they can be too. Apeland wrings the most affecting degree of melancholy possible from the material, whether it be the wistful opener “Flyt,” brief coda “Lite,” or the mournful “Mildt,” a meditation that is at certain moments so lovely it verges on heartbreaking. Apeland also manages to push the material into other directions, too, such as when the ruminative approach he brings to “Bulder og lys” gives it the feel of an Indian raga”. - Textura