Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Eldbjorg Raknes: From Frozen Feet Heat Came

660

Eldbjorg Raknes: From Frozen Feet Heat Came

By

View read count
Eldbjorg Raknes: From Frozen Feet Heat Came
Trondheim-based voice artist Eldbjorg Raknes, like fellow Norwegian voice artist Sidsel Endresen, has developed a highly personal and non-literary vocal language over the last fifteen years. Like Endresen, with whom Raknes collaborated on Gack! (Jazzland, 1999), with the all-vocal improvisation trio ESE also featuring Elin Rosseland, Raknes is constantly pushing the musical envelope with each new work. On her last releases Solo and I Live Suddenly (My Recordings, 2006), she chose to interpret poems by Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge and by Paul Celan and Robert Frost. On From Frozen Feet Heat Came she chooses to experiment with spontaneous improvisations on her poems.

Raknes chose two like-minded musicians from the cutting-edge front of the Norwegian improvisation scene to accompany her. Guitarist Stian Westerhus—a member of free improv-meets-noise outfit Puma and the popular jazz/rock ensemble Jaga Jazzist—is a distinct voice that sounds as if it's attempting to hybridize the abstract improv philosophy of Derek Bailey with thrash metal hammering of Slayer. Reed player Eirik Hegdal, of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and Zanussi Five, uses breath and reed mechanics in the same manner as the inspired British player John Butcher. Raknes adds electronics and live sampling of her voice to their uncompromising mix of dense and thorny textures.

But what may sound like the recipe for an extreme free-form improv experience is actually a cycle of sound poems that has a well-defined logic and coherence. Each poem seem to comment and keep its former poem's thread, all dealing vaguely with the regenerating cycle of life. Raknes' serene and haunting articulation sometimes contrasts and, more often, adds an ethereal dimension to the beautifully strange sound worlds that Westerhus and Hegdal create. Both Westerhus and Hegdal have an inventive palette of sounds that stress all of Raknes' vocal colors, from whispering hiss to sampled screaming drones; and both possess such an idiosyncratic language that they keep challenging each other.

Preconceived conventions about song form may need to be surrendered in order to fully appreciate From Frozen Feet Heat Came—a fearless trip into vocal expression and new sound textures that creates a unique and inspiring experience.

Track Listing

Some Day; Like Lighter; Sun Shine; From Frozen Feet; Heat Came; Closer; Ka Da?; Sa, Sa; See, Sing; Sit Down; Where; Everyway, Everyday.

Personnel

Eldbjorg Raknes: voice; live sampling, electronics, bells; Stian Westerhus: guitars, electronics; Eirik Hegdal: saxophones, clarinet.

Album information

Title: From Frozen Feet Heat Came | Year Released: 2009 | Record Label: My Recordings

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.