Search - Svalastog :: Woodwork

This is the second full-length release by Tromso, Norway (hometown of Biosphere, Alog, Bel Canto and R"yksopp) native Per Henrik Svalastog. Performed on Harpeleik (Norwegian zither), Bukkehorn (ram's horn) and Kuhorn (cow's horn). True story, as told by Per Henrik Svalastog himself: "I found an old Norwegian zither laying around my grandfather's barn in the mountains. It appeared that he had been a fiddler before he lost all his fingers at the sawmill and converted to become a hardcore pietist setting down a prohibition against music, dancing, card-playing and television. That made me want to convert as well, from digital medias to real playing. From electronica to folk music. Back to the sources. Heritage and environment." Per Henrik is actually playing and improvising on archaic folk instruments like the ram's horn and harpeleik, and then processing them into the computer, resulting in a detailed and accomplished but soothing and quite hypnotic music. Taking the music out of the city and into the Norwegian woods, and not the Arctic regions, as is the popular image if you come from Tromso and are associated with electronic music. This project was started with his first album Silencer, released by Beatservice in 2005 and called "a work of hushed splendour" in The Wire. Here it has been developed further into near perfection.