The Norwegian Langeland’s previous ECM releases have featured settings of the work of such notable Nordic poets as Edith Södergran, Olav H. Hauge and Tomas Tranströmer. Her recent Wolf Rune included some striking material by the contemporary Norwegian poet Jon Fosse (born 1959).
Here Fosse’s work features exclusively, sometimes in suite-like form, together with some related instrumental pieces. The handsomely packaged release has English translations of all the poems, as well as the Ny Norsk originals. I have opted to present the English titles in the discographical details below.
One might characterise Fosse’s poetics as a transmuted, almost Zen-like distillation and refraction of the spiritual quality which marks the pantheistic (albeit Christian-inflected) work of another most distinctive Norwegian writer, who also wrote in Ny Norsk: the Telemark-based Tarjei Vesaas (1897-1970).
The questing, affirmative nature of Fosse’s spare yet resonant lines is caught to perfection by Langeland on vocals, kantele and Jew’s harp, complemented by adroit, diversely pitched and developed contributions from the melodically oriented and tonally distinctive Eick (t) and Seim (ts, ss), Eilertsen (b) and Strønen (d).
As I remarked in my JJ review of Wolf Rune, Langeland’s is an art of exemplary timbral and dynamic sensitivity. Likewise her approach to rhythmic matters: Wind And Sun features a most subtle range of shifting pulse and rhythmic impetus, including the irresistible laid-back Latin grooves of The Love and the freshly cast, near-walking bass quality of the meditative yet blues-aware and finger-clicking concluding suite which is kicked off by You Hear My Heart Come.
Could such beautiful, folk-touched, mood-rich and mesmerising music be jazz? You bet!
Discography
Row My Ocean; Wind And Sun; It Walks And Walks; When The Heart Is A Moon; Hands That Held; A Child Who Exists; A Window Tells; The Love; Wind Song; A Child Who Exists (var.); Wind And Sun; You Hear My Heart Come (65.43)
Langeland (v, kantele, Jew’s harp); Mathias Eick (t); Trygve Seim (ts, ss); Mats Eilertsen (b); Thomas Strønen (d). Oslo, June 2022.
ECM 559 4314
