daniel meyer grønvold/håvard volden|cs126

Brief disc, two tracks about 5 and 24 minutes, the first a really attractive set of hum and scrabble, perfectly balanced. The longer track might meander a bit more as it seeks to incorporate more elements, including pure and rich guitar strumming, but its structure essentially grips and things feel right at the end. Good recording, well worth hearing, especially for fans of Ielasi, Guerra, etc. Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

A very short (29 minutes) but satisfying record featuring two guitarist playing tabletop acoustic, lo-fi electronics, and a dictaphone (Grønvald) or discman (Volden). Textural improvisation strongly relying on quiet resonances, well thought out and careful. François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

Another set of interesting quiet improvisation from this amazingly prolific label. Both these gents are unknown to me, and I wasn't able to find out much about them. So be it. What we have here are two pieces, one long and one short, of acoustic guitars, electronics, Dictaphone and Discman. It's difficult to tell exactly how these last listed items are contributing, but there are piles of scratches, loops, metal against metal and odd processing appearing between and underneath the more familiar guitar sounds.
The short piece, "Prevent, Suspend", has drones with odd cracklings beneath. The longer track at 23:37, "Trimerous/Sticks of Steel and Plastic", features lovely harmonics and finger-on-string squeak alongside a continuously evolving palette of rising/falling acoustic/electronic soundings. It's almost like two different improvisations grafted onto one another, but it works and creates an odd cohesion and linearity that plays out most logically, building to a symphony of chordage and sawing. Jeph Jerman (The Squid’s Ear)

An easier day today, my penultimate day in my current job role before a holiday and then a change of role that should in theory see these posts get written earlier in the day. We shall see. I have been listening some more to Daniel Meyer Grønvold and Håvard Volden’s eponymously titled duo album from last year on the Creative Sources album today then. These two young Norwegian musicians both play acoustic tabletop guitar, an unusual pairing. Each embellishes their set up with lo-fi electronics, while Grønvold adds a dictaphone and Volden a Discman. I’m not sure how the dictaphone is used here, but certainly Volden uses his Discman as a source of interference near a pick-up rather than as a method of playing sounds recorded on CDs.
The music on this release has a very slow, delicate feel to it. Quite often things slip into drone territory, but when they do I am reminded of the shifting detailed drones of Keith Rowe and Toshi Nakamura’s collaborations rather than any heavy oppressive dirge. Given the similarity of the two musicians’ chosen instrumentation it isn’t easy to tell who is making which sound here, so it is probably best if I don’t try and instead just describe the music. Everything sounds very considered, with sounds used sparingly, arriving slowly, entering cautiously but then often staying n place for a little while as the music around it changes very gradually. Mostly the sounds belong in the area we might expect, textural rubbing and scraping, eBowed tones, blurry feedback and chiming struck strings, but there are a few sounds here and there that buck the trend, looping synthetic sounding electronic belches or sudden squeaks of who knows what. These little intrusions into the otherwise comfortably balanced music keep things from slipping into uninteresting drone territory, providing just enough angular uncertainty to the music. There are two tracks here, the five minute long Prevent, Suspend opens the disc, and is followed by the twenty-three minute piece Trimerous / Sticks of steel and plastic, the doubled barrelled title of the second piece possibly referring to the two definite parts to the track, which are split at the eighteen and a half minute mark by two minutes of complete silence. The unexpected space in the music is another element that drags the music here away from standard drone fayre
While maybe not re-writing any rulebooks or treading into any dangerous waters, Grønvold and Volden’s CD makes for a very nice listen. Its beauty comes from the delicacy of the musical structures formed, with a sense of just fine threads holding the different parts of the music together. There is a fair amount of poise and considered restraint applied to the music, and it is this feeling of simplicity and clarity that makes the music work, even when several layers of sounds are added together. If on occasions the drone parts may seem to outstay their welcome this feeling is soon forgotten when everything changes. So a rattling loop of feedback might be replaced by a series of tiny clicks and crackles, the contrast between the two increased by the extended duration of the first sound. This is one of those albums that is hard to describe without rolling out the standard set of electrocaoustic improv descriptive terms; grainy, textural, scratchy, sinewaves etc… but its quality comes from the way the musicians keep things in check, stopping the music from becoming a cliché and using restraint as a key tool to create interesting, engaging music. Fans of this area of music will certainly enjoy this CD, which is otherwise likely to go somewhat unnoticed due to its appearance on Creative Sources. Certainly one to add to the shopping list. Very nice sleeve art as well, courtesy of Øivind Koppang Eriksen.
I’m not sure if this was the first album by the duo or if there is anything else available, but it certainly also serves as a positive pointer towards future recordings by the musicians. Volden’s album with Nakamura is out soon on Another Timbre, and I look forward to hearing more from Grønvold. As I listened to this today a parcel of six or seven discs from the Sofa label arrived here as well, definitely a Norwegian day here today. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)