Thursday, January 22, 2015

Terje Isungset "Meditations"



Ice from Antarctica and Arctic * Canada * Greenland * Norway * Sweden


Crisply fresh ice recording

A unique record release will take place during the 10th anniversary of the Ice Music Festival, where Terje Isungset launches the album Meditations. How does one hundred year old ice from the middle of the South Pole actually sound? Does it ring differently from five hundred year old ice from Spitsbergen? Can one sense the nuances compared to a seven hundred year old glacier in the Italian Alps?
Ice from all corners of the world provides the g-clef of Isungset`s newest music, which explores the tones of nature`s water cycle, the changing climate and the place for humans in touched and untouched nature.

Meditations was recorded over the last four years, and most of the recordings were done near the site where the ice was harvested, and when temperatures were at their most inhospitable. The colder the ice, the better the sound. During the recording by the Hudson Bay Company in Canada, the mercury crept down to 38 degrees below zero.
That's cold. Very cold!

In 2002 Isungset released the worlds first record with ice music. Today All Ice Records has seven ice CD's in its catalog. Terje Isungset is counted as one of Europe's most acclaimed and innovative percussionist. For over two decades, he has experimented and challenged the limits of jazz and Scandinavian traditional music, and created his very own unique instruments from local natural materials. Meditations is Terje Isungset;s greatest artistic accomplishment to date and offers a unique musical journey.

Ice from different parts of the earth comes together on the album Meditations, through the musical energy of Isungset?s icehorn, ice-percussion, iceofon and ice drums in interplay with Arve Henriksen`s trumpets, Lena Nymark`s vocals, and Svante Henrysson`s icecello.
Ice selected from Canadian fresh water lakes and salty oceans, from thousand year old Svartisen and Nigardsbreen glaciers, as well as massive icebergs in Upernavik, Greenland. Anders Jormin sounds out bass tones from ice, whereas Mats Elden caresses the fragile ice violin. Ice from Geilo, Kirkenes and Lillehammer blend with cold matter from Jukkasjarvi, Siberia and the French Pyrenees, whereas unique archival field recordings of Canadian Inuit and Norwegian sami people crank the proverbial ice drill even deeper into the historic ice.
Reidar Skaar binds it all together with his keys and programming.


The result is exotic and poetic.

Terje Isungset, «Meditations»
All Ice 1407


All Ice Records, Norway

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