With Minnesota, guitarist and composer Trond Kallevåg deepens his image-rich sound – a warm, wistful universe where the atmosphere of Norway’s rugged west coast drifts seamlessly into the wide horizons of the American Midwest.
Drawing inspiration from traditional music, jazz, ambient folk, emigration stories, and rare photographs unearthed during an artist residency on the unique and remote island of Træna in Northern Norway , Kallevåg weaves a sound world rooted in the Norwegian Coast – yet forever gazing westward.
Minnesota marks Kallevåg’s fourth album on the acclaimed Hubro label, following Bedehus & Hawaii (2019), Fengselsfugl (2021), and Amerikabåten (2023). As on his previous…
Tag Archive: Hubro
A dry mouth, sore muscles and a pounding headache led Liv Andrea Hauge to write the music on this short but deep-reaching record. The Norwegian pianist was tucked up in bed, sweating and shivering with high fever. Through the murky fug of ill health, she identified a series of rhythmic and melodic shapes that now form the third release by her thoughtful, efficient trio.
…The record explores the feeling of being “døgnvill” – a Norwegian term describing the sensation of being out of sync with time and reality, like during jet lag or insomnia. The music inhabits this liminal space between structure and freedom, consciousness and dream.
Half of the compositions were written while pianist and composer Liv Andrea Hauge was…
For as long as it has existed, it seems as if the piano has been subject to opinions and experiments of various types. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the player piano was a popular self-playing piano with a mechanism that operated the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls to play popular tunes.
Later on, it became more fashionable for pianists to play inside the piano lid, for example by striking or plucking strings, by vibrating strings using an ebow and/or inserting items such as door keys or ping pong balls onto the strings, which made some sounds unlike an untreated piano. In addition, opinions differ greatly about the ideal tuning to make a piano sound as good as possible.
All of which brings us to Jo David Meyer Lysne,…
On the album Mirra, the innovative folk musician Benedicte Maurseth once again invites us to the vast Hardangervidda plateau—this time with a focus on the wild reindeer.
When Benedicte Maurseth released the album Hárr in 2022, the visionary Hardanger fiddle player was praised for creating a masterpiece. Her blend of the distinctive sound of the Hardanger fiddle and the use of concrete sounds from wildlife immersed listeners in a unique soundscape.
For Hárr, she received the prestigious Nordic Music Prize, and the album was named one of the world’s top ten folk music releases of the year by The Guardian.
Now she releases the long-awaited follow-up Mirra, which, like Hárr, is a concept album where…
In late winter 2024, pianist Kjetil Mulelid, saxophonist Kika Sprangers, bassist Mats Eilertsen, and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen gathered in Per Oddvar’s homey surroundings in Lommedalen. Everyone brought a few tunes and ideas, then hit “record” and let the music take shape. It turned out to be a beautiful first encounter, leading to the recording of the album Morning.
Kika and Kjetil share: “No take was the same. A ‘take two’ often tends to refer back to ‘take one,’ especially if take one sounds good. But with Mats and Per Oddvar, each take went in its own unique direction. The interplay was fantastic — it felt completely natural and organic. Even though we didn’t know each other very well yet, we were able to follow each other’s musical…
Sakte Film (Slow motion) is the sixth and most ambitious solo album of Norwegian, Oslo-based guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Geir Sundstøl celebrating his tenth anniversary as a solo artist. This genre-defying, with layers of resonant string instruments, flirts with close and far folk traditions, blues, country music, jazz, space music à la Tangerine Dream, and new age.
..Sundstøl has had a rich and varied career, to say the least. Within the HUBRO universe, his music has remained a pillar for years, and Sakte Film is no exception. However, this release embraces a broader scope, with multiple layers of strings that create even more room for resonance and exploration. Sundstøl explains: “What sets this album apart from my previous ones is,…
A pizzicato violin opens Song Over Støv. Gradually, other instruments arrive: bowed violin, a fluttering flute, pattering percussion, an ominous double bass. They merge. The climax is furious, intensely rhythmic. Suddenly, it is over.
“Straumen frobi” – which translates from Norwegian as The Current Passing By – sets the scene for five more equally dynamic, just-as feverish tracks. Each is as much about the structured interplay of instruments as it is impact.
At times – especially during “I natt” (Tonight) and “Trø” (Step) – proceedings evoke the folk music/ rock hybrid characterised by Sweden’s late ’60s/ early ’70 progg (sic) scene; of bands like Arbete & Fritid (their Ur Spår album) and Tråd Grås och Stenar (as caught on the live Gårdet album).
Norwegian trio Building Instrument – Mari Kvien Brunvoll, Åsmund Weltzien, Øyvind Hegg-Lunde – returns with new sounds full of dreamy pop hooks, sparkling synth textures and beguiling lyrics about the moon, spirit, animals and the experience of simply being alive. As the pop sensibility is filtered through an aesthetic of playful experiment, the gorgeous, brightly hued tunes and seductively shiny textures share house room with avant-garde sound-art.
If you want to hear delicious ear candy intersected by spooky instrumental vignettes or a brief snippet of a car engine stalling, here’s where to find it. The result is a compulsively listenable album whose deceptively poppy surface unpeels to reveal a whole underworld of…
Guitarist and composer Stein Urheim has been a prominent artist in the HUBRO catalog for more than ten years. In addition to releases under his own name, he has contributed to albums by Erlend Apneseth, Benedicte Maurseth, a duo with Jørgen Træen, and most recently, the critically acclaimed “Barefoot in Bryophyte” with Mari Kvien Brunvoll and Moskus.
On January HUBRO release Speilstillevariasjoner. For these recordings, Urheim invited a group of highly distinctive musicians to collaborate, resulting in his most original and uncompromising album to date. The outcome is experienced as both poetic, atmospheric and mind-expanding. The album stands out in Urheim’s catalog, but at the sametime, it is a logical progression…
Barefoot in Bryophyte is a collaboration between musicians embedded in Norway’s jazz and experimental music scenes. Some of it, though, sounds nothing like what might be expected. Take the fourth track, “Paper Fox.” Figuratively, it lies at the centre of a Venn Diagram bringing together Mazzy Star, 4AD’s 1984 This Mortal Coil album It’ll End in Tears and the more minimal aspects of Baltimore’s Beach House. It’s quite something.
Then there’s the shoegazing-adjacent “So Low” which does, indeed, bear a familial resemblance to Low were they stripped of their tendency towards embracing noise. The beautiful, intense, spacey “Colors” pushes even further in this direction. It’s unlikely these tracks were meant to evoke any of this, more probably that this is…
The seventh album from Splashgirl, More Human is made in collaboration with singer/sound artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, and producer Randall Dun. The album title, More Human, explores the role of humanity in a society increasingly reliant on technology, where artists face direct competition from artificial intelligence. What is the difference between what humans create and what machines create as technology becomes more sophisticated? And how can we preserve the genuinely human in music produced by live musicians coming together to create music?
As everything was set for recording at Ocean Sound Recordings in the fall of 2021, Americans Lowe and Dunn were denied entry to Norway under the prevailing COVID restrictions.
Nils Økland is interested in the journeys and dialogues of music across time and space, a music without national and traditional borders. At the same time, he is also very inspired by local music from many places and often prefers old fiddlers and singers who have a unique personal playing style. The first concert with Nils Økland Band took place in 2014, and since then, they have released the Norweigan Grammy nominated Kjølvatn on ECM and Lysning on Hubro, which won the award. It has been seven years since their last release.
…The band has been working on Gjenskinn (Gleam) for a long time, resulting in a genre-defying, cohesive work inspired by influences from around the world. There has been ample time to rehearse new repertoire, as Nils explains:…
…Liv Andrea Hauge Trio’s debut album, Live from St. Hanshaugen, was recorded in Liv’s living room just a week after they started playing together. In contrast, the trio’s first studio album, Ville Blomster (Wild Flowers) represents the result of a year of frequent touring, practice, and studio time. The trio has developed its own expression, allowing room for exploration and improvisation. The title “Ville blomster” symbolizes the wild and improvised side of their music, along with the beautiful and simple melodic elements (the flowers) that stand out.
The album was recorded at Athletic Sound in Halden with Dag Erik Johansen in May 2023. Much of the music was written just before, and the album’s tracks range from rythmic,…
The guitarist and composer, Trond Kallevåg, sets sail and explores the stories and mystique of American music and culture. With a cinematic quality reminiscent of Ry Cooder and Bill Frisell, that could serve as the soundtrack of a Cohen Brothers movie, it draws inspiration from the hundreds of thousands of Norwegians who embarked on transformative journeys across the vast ocean.
Amerikabåten, (“The American boat”) is Kallevåg’s third album following the critical success of Bedehus & Hawaii (2019) and Fengselsfugl (2021). To bring his stories to life, Trond has assembled a stellar ensemble of esteemed young Norwegian musicians, including Selma French, Daniela Reyes, Håkon Aase, Jo Berger Myhre, and Ola Øverby.
The latest album release by acclaimed Norwegian band Erlend Apneseth Trio is made in collaboration with renowned experimental composer and vocalist Maja Ratkje. Their impromptu concert together in 2022 was a glorious kick-off for a five-day festival and was luckily put on tape. After reworking and reimagining the recorded material with their steady collaborator Jørgen Træen, the result is a refreshing take on improvisations-turned-compositions. Featuring innovative soundscapes with archival material and an engaging transitory state.
The variety of sounds that make up this glorious and aptly named Collage is astounding. Elemental sounds range from the howling wind and soft-bright ringing of sheep-bells to the timeless…
Hans Hulbækmo, a driving force in the groups Moskus, Skadedyr, Flukten and Reolo, and a prominent member of bands like Atomic, Hanna Paulsberg Concept, Broen and Hulbækmo & Jacobsen Familieorkester, is now ready with his first solo album – Tilfeldig Næpe.
Hulbækmo was born into a musical family, where both his mother Tone Hulbækmo, and father Hans Fredrik Jacobsen, were active musicians within Norwegian Folk Music. Hans and his brother Alf were taken on tours around the world from an early age. His upbringing has shaped his identity as a musician and has made music a natural part of everyday life. His versatile musicality makes it as natural for him to express himself through the drum set as through other instruments.
Morten Georg Gismervik is a great storyteller and Dunes at Night deals with two very different characters, as presented by both the album’s musical style and track titles. Both characters have their own dedicated tunes, one opening the album, and the other one concluding it. The first character – Kimri – is presented through outgoing music with explosive grooves, while the other – Winter – appears more introvert and shy. This is where the colder, softer touch of nordic jazz makes its mark. The album draws inspiration on both Nordic and lyrical jazz as well as prog rock, and you can hear Gismervik’s unique ability to convey stories throughout the album.
Morten Georg Gismervik himself describes it like this: “With Dunes at Night I was inspired to…
Trondheim Voices has since the early 2000s been one of Norway’s most innovative and influential vocal ensembles. Each singer’s individuality, and her timbre combined with the other voices, are in focus, resulting in a unique quality to the group´s collective sound. The album Gjest Song invites the listener into a timeless space, with music composed by Chrsitian Wallumrød.
In 2015, Trondheim Voices and Wild at Art made a Gestamtkunstwerk called “Gjestehus”, a long durational performance which took place in a 5 days round the clock open event in Lademoen church during the Trondheim International Olavsfest the same year. Christian Wallumrød was invited to write music that was continuously performed and shaped day by day.
Geir Sundstøl has made a name for himself as an innovative session musician on hundreds of Norwegian and international albums. 2015 saw the release of Furulund, the first self-composed long player from this Master of Strings. Langen Ro, Norwegian Grammy winner Brødløs and St.Hanshaugen Steel, followed soon after.
Now, the stage is set for something quite different. The Studio Intim Sessions, Volume 1, Sundstøl’s fifth solo album, has taken a trip on its own, away from the cinematic Nordic noir and genre-crossing soundscapes we know, and ended up somewhere south of the Kattegat.
In the words of Geir Sundstøl: “In the late sixties, my uncle was a restless kid in our hometown of Halden. Just like many young men, he dropped…
Erlend Apneseth is one of Norway’s foremost Hardanger fiddle players and folk musicians. After being widely recognized with the award-winning and critically acclaimed Erlend Apneseth Trio, he now returns with an acoustic soloalbum. This is the first time since his debut album Blikkspor (2013) that he has put the soloistic performance in focus, and this time the unique acoustics in Emmanuel Vigeland’s Mausoleum sets the scene for his improvisations and compositions.
“The Hardanger fiddle is traditionally a soloistic instrument. For me, one of the most fascinating things about the instrument is its ability to fill a whole room with sound all by itself. Even though I’ve been working in an electro-acoustic universe the last years, I’ve never left the acoustic…
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