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Barlast

Barlast creates spacious new music with a silence echoing in the background. The silence can be heard between the notes. Everything unnecessary is stripped away. Only the name remains as ballast. From the soothing sound of a telecaster to the calling of the herder instrument mänkeri, from the rumble of a frame drum to a free double bass solo. The aural visions range from 18th century dances to heavy breathing in hazmat suits.

Philip Holm - double bass Heikki Hänninen - guitars Minna Koskenlahti - percussion and flute Santte Salonen - soprano saxophone, bass clarinet and mänkeri

Barlast: Svanvik

by Anthony Shaw
December 4, 2019

This second album from Barlast, a self-proclaimed folk-jazz quartet from Helsinki, continues much in the vein of their first, Ihantalo released in 2017. Where Ihantalo featured only tunes from bassist Philip Holm, the current album includes five tunes written by the whole band, as well as five more of Holm's, and is sonically more experimental. To say that this music is minimalist is maybe to miss the point that it frequently leans on the interplay between the ...

"Proportionality in harmony and disharmony, density and scarcity, loudness and silence is the key to the alchemy of Barlast’s sound." - Balazs Weyer / Finnish Music Quarterly

"The Finnish quartet’s new album Musik för scener is a spectral wonder." - Bill Brownlee / There stands the glass