Erlend Apneseth Trio with Maja Ratkje — Collage

Collage is a very apt title for this fifth release from the Erlend Apneseth Trio- as it's a many-layered affair, where elements and tones often shift ‘n’ swim. Flowing through the album's seven-track waterway we have earthy & droning strings, bubbling electronics, skittering & darting percussion, wavering & warbling vocals, field recordings, etc.

Erlend Apneseth Trio formed in 2016- with their standard line-up being: Erlend Apneseth- Hardanger Fiddle. Stephan Meidell-Baritone Acoustic Guitar, Live Sampling, & Modular Synth.  And Øyvind Hegg-Lunde-Acoustic Drums & Electronic Drums, Percussion, Timpani. For this album, they are joined by the highly talented/ versatile singer Maja S. K. Ratkje- Voice, Electronics.

The album opens with “Tre Vegan” this just shy of seven-minute track builds from distant warbling female choir-like vocals, rising fiddle tone, and detailed percussion clang ‘n’ rattle. Thorough to treading electronics, string drone, and rushing water field records.

By track three “ Spor Etter Spor (Mellom Oss)” we find Ratkje sing-song backwards ‘n’ forwards vocals joined by tonal choppiness, glowing string tone, gentle percussion weaves, with later warmly warbling & glowing vocalising appearing.

In the album's second half we move from the knocking ‘n’ banging train-like percussion tones, meets baying electronics, string pluck of “Ein Annan Himmel” which later on adds in wild woman shierk & rant, and more propulsive/ detailed percussion. With the album playing out with the sort of meditative meets slight manic tone of “Atterklang” which blends mellow percussion hits, Modular synth swoops, grand string fiddles, the occasional vocal quirks, and light electro-percussive airiness.

Collage feels like a sonic adventure in the best sense of the word- as the four-piece create some wonderfully flowing & shifting sound worlds, which sidestep any formal genre tagging. I do hope these four work together again because they do create some great magic here.