FNS — Self titled

Like the oft-quoted epigram, Norwegian home recording artist Fredrik Ness Sevendal sets about his musical journeys without concern for the destination - it’s the getting there that matters. His sound, presented here by Miasmah reissuing his debut CDr of 2005, is based around the most minimal of melodies played on acoustic or electric guitars whose spare notes are steadily and earnestly repeated to build celestial, cyclical incantations supplemented by subtle electronics.

Tracks like album opener, ‘Silence to say hello’ and ‘Wooden leg’ keep a steadily strummed acoustic guitar at their centre while a layer of gentle, finger-picked refrains play on top as electronic effects sink, fizz and dissolve in the flow. Despite expectations to the contrary, the lack of melodic progression casts a ritualistic shadow over the proceedings, taking the expected pastoral pastime into a dark forest of hidden behaviours.

This moodiness is emphasised further on the electric guitar-driven pieces, ‘Sappélur’ and ‘I think she’s asleep’, whose droning layers form a dirge on which wavering notes are hung that twist and wail through the fog bringing to mind the cosmic energy on parts of Hawkwind’s ‘Space Ritual’. The original CDr closed with ‘Dream’, a frozen moment in an imagined desert from a spaghetti western, but this reissue doesn’t end there - it is augmented by a new extended piece recorded last year – ‘Flaggermusvingers vift i dimmet’. This shows Sevendal sticking to the formula but with greater confidence and focus than before. Steadily and unhurried, a buzzing drone accompanied by just a few plucked notes builds its presence, where the odd change in notation is thrown into sharp contrast, as the intensity ebbs and flows before crashing to an end, leaving rippling guitar notes in its wake.

The qualities of the music captured on FNS are as much a testament to process as to proficiency. Repetition in the compositions is diffracted in the mix by judicious use of echo throughout ensuring that while the notes remain the same the flow is constantly moving. In their dedication to repetition, these rich sonorities exploit the idiosyncrasies of somatic play as opposed to the sterile purity of automated loops. By celebrating such impurities, Sevendal has created a textural, hypnotic approach that has suggestions of psychedelia and UK folk within its shimmering, raga-like iterations.