Hi, Erik,
your second solo album, titled „Unrest“, possibly to be released in October on Hubro – and you’re right, it’s the dark „sister“ of „Heliographs“. It avoids all too obvious „signifiers“ of the „Punkt family“ and knows about sidestepping. Though there are known elements, the overall atmosphere tends to the „unknown“.
A music critic (dealing with Arve’s „Towards Language“) recommended writing a soundtrack for a horror movie. Seems a bit far-fetched, but here it is, the dark one, if you leave out the cliche sounds of the genre and stick to the ethereal field of the ungraspable. The better name would be „Unheimlichkeitsmusik“ (have fun translating this!)…
I think I’m good in sequencing tracks (after so many years of radio making – looking for common ground between the most disparate material), so I can say this sequence is top notch. For example: the places for Sidsel’s vocals, brilliant. For example: the penultimate, slightly percussive track, „Processing“, every other place on the album would lose that track’s impact. Arve and Sidsel are nicely separated as the two „lead vocals“ of the whole album.
I like your loose, free piano playing on the first two tracks, the Sidsel pieces are heavenly stuff of the dark matter resort, a thrilling performance of emotional in-between-states (really sad she hasn’t put out out a solo album in years, I wonder why).
Another highlight is your kind of singing or vocalising on the final track. The voice on „The Park“ has an entrancing flow, the melody is, if that makes sense, irresisitible in a low-key manner (no pushing, no crescendo). It has something of the „Weltentrücktheit“ of Brian Eno’s „Julie and I“… (and, you won’t believe it, but it’s true, you should do a vocal album in the future, not necessarily a-cappella ) …
Stuart Moxham would love that tune and, if he had found it decades ago for himself, he would have put it on The Gist’s „Embrace The Herd“ :)
The Gist was a follow-up of the legendary Young Marble Giants‘ „Colossal Youth“, one of my all time faves, and, just in these days, before going to Wales, I have been reading the book from the 33 1/3 series …
The great unmade album: Erik Honoré and Jan Bang invite Alison Statton for a song album that transports the ascetic sparseness of her magic anti-virtuoso-singing of 1980 to the Nordic spheres … or an Alison Statton-Erik Honoré-vocal double album: Lee Hazelwood would send flowers from the tower of song, no kidding …
I digress. Fine.
Look for a nice room with cozy chairs and free Capirinhas for the first pre-listening sesssion of the album at The Punktfestival 2017! In case there is one …
Best,
Michael