Sigurd Hole: Roraima

Norwegian upright bassist Sigurd Hole has stood out in the recent past as both a contributor (with his elegant performance on Tord Gustavsen's 2018 ECM album, The Other Side) and bandleader (through his 2018 Elvesang album Encounters). His solo explorations are equally noteworthy, as on the wide-ranging double album Lys / Mørke (Elvesang, 2020). Recorded on the remote arctic islands of Fleinvær, he thoughtfully probed the relationship between the high-pitched harmonics and drones of his instrument and the spectral winds of his surroundings.

With Roraima, commissioned for the Oslo World 2020 festival, Hole takes his fascination with nature even further. Inspired by indigenous culture, ecology, and the creatures and rituals intertwined with the Brazilian rainforest, Roraima eschews a typical tracklist, instead evoking near-mystical atmospheres with names such as "The Porporiri Moon Being," "The Shaman's Death," and "The Yarori Ancestors."

Hole has assembled the perfect roster to bring this ambitious vision to life, with Trygve Seim on saxophone, Hakon Aase on violin, Frode Haltli on accordion, Helga Myhr on hardanger fiddle, Tanja Orning on cello, Per Oddvar Johansen on vibraphone, and of course, himself on the double bass. It is difficult to believe that the album was recorded in a live setting (during its premiere in Jakob Church, Oslo in 2020), as it has the feel of being meticulously wrought and impeccably detailed.

From the start, this is a transfixing album that expertly fuses concept with execution. Beginning with several minutes of field recordings from the Amazon basin, human instrumentation only gradually begins to assert itself into this complex mesh of sounds. The palette here is not dissimilar from the work of contemporaries such as Thomas Strønen, Nils Økland, or Arve Henriksen, straddling nebulous boundaries between jazz, folk, and chamber music with the same qualities of assiduous composition and graceful restraint. What sets it apart is the revisitation of the central themes. The line between song and sound-world is sometimes blurred, as the twittering of insects and cries of birds mingle almost imperceptibly with Hole's performers. On "The Hutukara Forest," what momentarily appears to be the piercing call of a bird reveals itself as Seim's plaintive saxophone. The plucked strings that open "The Poriporiri Moon Being" could suggest either the trickling of water into the basin of buttress roots or the coordinated motion of myriad insect legs. 

However, this is not to say that Roraima avoids song structures entirely; its 17 tracks circulate seamlessly from amorphous, evocative vignettes ("The Paths Of Light I") to propulsive, rousing pinnacles ("The Words Of Merchandise"). Along the way is an abundance of rewarding secrets, like Haltli's accordion answering the guttural snarls of a jaguar ("The Jaguar Being Iramari") or the insistent arpeggios of "The Mothokari Sun Being" that flit like fish in a stream. Hole even adds in the liner notes that the peculiar melody of a red-billed toucan reappears throughout the composition.

At a time when the Amazon is headed towards a catastrophic tipping point, increasingly unable to rebound from destruction, it has become easy to despair in the face of impending disaster. Instead, Roraima presents a clarion call for hope and reorientation toward the natural world. In Hole's vision, the Amazon is vast, rich with its own characters and customs, at some times fearsome and at others joyful, and ultimately invaluable.

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