Artists
Sverre Gjørvad drums, voice
Herborg Rundberg piano, pump organ, drum
Dag Okstad bass, drum
Kristian Svalestad Olstad guitars, drum
Joakim Milder tenor saxophone on track 8
CD info
Release No: LOS 247-2
EAN: 7090025832475
All compositions by Sverre Gjørvad except track 8 by Paddy McAloon
Recorded July 1-3, 2020 by Kristian Svalestad Olstad at Kysten studio, Tromsø, Norway
Tenor saxophone recorded August 11, 2020 by Magnus Frykberg at Break My Heart Studio, Stockholm, Sweden
Mixed August 2020 by Kristian Svalestad Olstad at Room 225, Tromsø
Mastered September 7, 2020 by Morten Lund at Lund´s Lyd, Oslo, Norway
Produced by Sverre Gjørvad
Front cover photo by maxeilert
Kjøp plater direkte fra Losen Records. Kr 200,- per CD inkl. porto. Vipps til 99006190 og mail navn og adresse til odd@losenrecords.no
Digisleeve in the link below:
Download Press Release (PDF)
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“Elegy of Skies” is his 4th album continuing his reflections on the whereabouts in the high north of Norway.
Compared to the 2019 album “Voi River”, the music is more open, letting the band go wider in exploring the musical terrain of the compositions. Besides the original music, the album also include Paddy McAloons “Mercy”, first released on Prefab Sprouts’ album “Jordan, The Comeback”.
Sverre about the music:
1.
An Amorphic Balloon. Dreamy chords, with some words that can be meaningful while listening.
2.
Elegy of Skies. I actually woke up at night with this melody in my head. I sang it into my telephone and went back to sleep. I wrote it on paper the morning after.
3.
Rein was made with David Monrad Johansen’s little piano piece “Reindeer” in mind. I think reindeers look both clumsy and elegant, but I cannot remember seeing them galloping.
4.
Fire. Three playful melodies.
5.
The Wife Waltzes too. A nice memory.
6.
Islands and Mountains. Another memory, and an elegy as well.
7.
Strive. A song longing for something.
8.
Mercy. A beautiful song by one of my favourite composers, with a saxophone player sharing my admiration. The pump organ might bring Laestadian congregations to mind.
9.
Elegy of Skies 2 (in memoriam) This is personal.
Sverre Gjørvad (born 26th of October 1966 in Stathelle, Norway) studied jazz at the University of Trondheim. Many years later, he did a Master Degree at the University of Tromsø.
He has played and recorded albums with such bands as Storytellers and Dingobats, as well as numerous other Norwegian musicians.
In 2001, Gjørvad debuted as a solo artist with the album “Denne lille pytten er et hav”. Ten years later, he released his second solo album “patience for the little things”, recorded in Cape Town, South Africa, partly with South African musicians.
After some years in Oslo, Sverre Gjørvad moved to Hammerfest, Northern Norway in 2006, where he works as a freelance musician, as well as a producer for the Arctic Cultural Centre.
His highly acclaimed Losen Records album “Voi River” was released 2019.
Sverre Gjørvad plans releasing jazz from Northern Norway annually for the next 3 years.
Kristian Svalestad Olstad holds a Master Degree from the University of Tromsø. He teaches guitar at the Tromsø Cultural School, as well as playing and recording with the band “Leagus” and with musicians like Petter Carlsen, Anneli Drecker and Benjamin Mørk. He has a distinct and recognizable style, mixing tradition and innovation in a awless manner.
Herborg Rundberg also holds a Master Degree from the University of Tromsø. It is hard to say what goes on musically in her mind, but what comes out is brilliant. It is not in the “jazz tradition”, but it is beautiful and always feels right.
Herborg Rundberg also teaches music at the Tromsø Cultural School. Together with Kristian Olstad, she plays in “Leagus”.
In fact, bassist Dag Okstad also holds a Master Degree from the University of Tromsø, and he teaches music at Tromsø Cultural School as well. His great rhythm, beautiful sound and attention to harmonics, makes him a much sought after bass player in Northern Norway. New to his life, is that he now lives in a boat.
Dag Okstad was also born on the 26th of October 1966 like Sverre Gjørvad.
Swedish Joakim Milder share Sverre Gjørvad’s admiration for Paddy Mcaloon, and plays beautifully tenor saxophone on his song “Mercy”.
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Sverre Gjørvad is a storyteller, and has been at least since he played in the band Storytellers, established in Trondheim in 1992. What it means to be a storytelling drummer and composer may be an open question, but on this album the stories are told using melodies and atmospheres. Thus begins an answer to the question of how to tell stories as a composer: you have musicians who translate your compositions into stories. The musicians on this album are the same ones that played on Voi Riverfrom 2019: Herborg Rundberg on piano and pump organ, Kristian Svalestad Olstad on guitar, and Dag Okstad on bass, and in their interaction you can hear that they know each others.
The melodic and the atmospheric are two extremes on a continuum, but these compositions on the album contain both ends. “An Amorphic Balloon” with its long-held chords and bowed bass is on the atmospheric side, where the drums establish space as much as time. “Elegy of Skies” is different, and opens with a solo melody in bass. A piano chord almost stops time, but the bass reappears and the instruments enters into a form of questions and answers. The melody is characteristic for one of Gjørvad’s compositional strategies, what I am tempted to call a reflexive naivety.
“Rein” is partly inspired by David Monrad Johansen’s “Rensdyr” (Reindeer), and here another dimension of Gjørvad’s stories come to the fore: a Nordic or Northern dimension. There is something site-specific about his stories, him being inspired from his surroundings, and as a musician and composer he draws on these inspirations and translate them into sounds.
The playful opening theme of “Fire” develops into a musical dialogue. The different instruments move in and out of focus, and the composition feels like a conversation between them, but the kind of conversation where the partners know each other so well that they some times complete each other’s sentences. A different kind of conversation seems to be at stake on “The Wife Waltzes Too.” The drums lay a whispered and whispering foundation for melodic interactions as if the instruments are dancing. The song moves seamlessly from the composed to the improvised parts, as if there is no clear distinction between them. The solos make the song sound like four voices telling the same story from different perspectives.
Like many musicians in the so-called jazz tradition, like other musicians of his generation, Gjørvad also relates to pop music. More specifically, he introduces at least one pop cover on his albums. On this one, it is Prefab Sprout’s “Mercy,” where Joakim Milder joins the band on tenor saxophone. Surrounded by organ, with discreet drumming, and bass fundament, the melody becomes the carrying dimension of the cover. This may not be surprising for a pop song, so it at the same time makes perfect sense together with the melodic dimensions of the original compositions.
As if to emphasize that this is an album by a drummer that is also a composer, the last track, “Elegy of Skies 2 (in memoriam)” opens with atmospheric drums and percussion, together with percussive piano figures. But after listening to the whole album, it is striking how melodic Gjørvad’s drumming feels. Thus, the meeting between the melodic and the atmospheric throughout the album teaches us to listen differently, to listen for melodies where they may not be obviously present.
Erik Steinskog, September 2020
