Håvard Volden / Carlo Costa: In the Wake

How would it sound if the American primitive guitar of John Fahey met the avant-garde of abstract jazz improvisation in the wilderness? Guitarist Havard Volden and drummer Carlo Costa give the answer on their album In the Wake.

The cover by Brooke Herr is an image of an abstract seascape that resides somewhere between the referential image and a manipulation that goes beyond the image. The same thing goes for the music that uses the recognizable sounds of a strummed guitar and the unrecognizable sounds of scratching cymbals and percussion transformed into something new. The drum set is no longer there, it has disappeared in the air. Percussion plays and becomes something else.

Volden strums the guitar like a painter with broad brushstrokes on a canvas. Large, percussive strokes and delicate steel strings, almost unheard. The sound of a temple bell rings. It is a call for spirituality. Rhythm is broken up into pieces like the titles of the tracks: "Awash," "Pool," "Ripple" and "Ebb." Different movements of water, different movements of music. The sound of water and steel. Rippling, etching, marking silence. A drip, a drop. A chord is a sound is a chord and then it disappears in the waves. In the wake.

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