(Avant-Garde, Jazz Electronic, Experimental, Folk) [WEB] Stein Urheim - Strandebarm - 2016, FLAC (HUBRO) (tracks), lossless

Stein Urheim is a guitarist and virtuoso musician who crafts moving, mostly instrumental music with an expressive, condensed narrative style on his third record for Hubro. Strandebarm refers to a former municipality of Norway located in the Hordaland county at Norway’s southwest end. Multi-instrumentalist Stein Urheim recorded it in the Strandebarm Church, which is now in the town of Bru, but used to be Strandebarm’s main church until the municipality was dissolved in 1965.
A major industry in the area was shipmaking, which may explain the art (Hubro releases always have great art). This record captures a state of mind, a sense of harmony with nature, a portrait of an isolated place, familiar in some ways but utterly alien too. Strandebarm is a vacation, a journey by an expert guide, past trees and mountains in faraway Norway countryside, a geography of strings, winds, blues, greens, chimes, corny rhymes, a fretless bouzouki, a Turkish tanbur, mandolins, and wounded tape loops. Stein Urheim’s breadth and skill in composition makes it easy to send his songs down psychedelic tunnels, split them up with jazzy solos, or dance gracefully with dense and exotic arrangements, such as the title track, which is broken up between an introductory passage of stirring ambience and an intimately complex piece for acoustic guitar. The album, sometimes rendered in postmodern colors with synthesizers from Jørgen Træe and sudden, multi-tracked vocals, is an exhilarating tour from start to finish. Stein sometimes ambles into tranquil acoustic places and buries them in tape loop noise, or sometimes composes a gentle, coordinated blues piece on guitar that dies in a whimsical carnival fire. Songs begin organically, patiently, then twist inside out and back again — major keys go minor, organic goes electronic, the strings go away in the synth snow but come back when the snow melts to sing in the sun. “Fjellbekk” opens as a cathartic choir of mandolins, which is slowly accompanied by a shattered wave of MP3-compression-artifact noise and collapses to a demure blues piece, eventually transforming into a collage of field-recorded rings and buzzing things. Somehow it all makes sense from one form to the next. Or, better yet, as an escape from sense. Acoustic instruments and electric guitars recorded January 2015 in Strandebarm kyrkje.
Editing, mixing and mastering at Grotten/Duper Studio, Bergen, Norway, September/October 2015
Dragene over Tempelhof mixed in S(c)höneberg, Berlin October 2014, edited and mastered October 2015

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On his third solo album for HUBRO, string magician Stein Urheim, based in Berlin, Bergen and Strandebarm, really gets serious about honing his complex expressive skills. His previous album garnered excellent reviews internationally, and has become a force to reckon with among listeners. Urheim plays an impressive number of string instruments on the album, but we can also hear several tracks featuring vocals, harmonica, pocket cornet and tape experiments, while producer Jørgen Træen makes a contribution on modular synth. Urheim has had an interest in Norwegian folk music for a long time. Together with Benedicte Maurseth he won first prize in the “open class” category in the National Contest for Traditional Music in 2013, and on “Strandebarm” he interprets a Norwegian fiddle tune for the first time on an album. In the course of his life as a musician Stein Urheim has gathered impressions and input from a musical world that knows no boundaries, and on this album he presents some of the most exceptional and exciting treasures he has discovered along the way – all filtered, naturally, through his distinctive musical temperament. This is strikingly personal music, which could most likely not have been made at any other time in history. The tonal point of departure for the compositions on this record is reminiscent of French music of the early 1900s and American ragtime and standards of the 1920s and 30s. The soundscape combines acoustic and electronic elements to generate a compelling result. Urheim is thoughtful and meditative without being withdrawn or sombre. “Strandebarm” was recorded in Strandebarm Church, not far from the house where Urheim has stayed for long periods of time in recent years. This space was chosen primarily because of its inspiring acoustics, and the music was recorded, as on the previous album, by sound technician Audun Strype. The recording was finalised and mixed at Duper Studio in Bergen by technician and producer Jørgen Træen, who also collaborated very successfully with Urheim on the previous album. “Strandebarm” is Stein Urheim’s third release as a solo artist, and also his third release on the HUBRO label. He has also released three critically acclaimed duo albums on Bugge Wesseltoft’s Jazzland label, together with vocalist and instrumentalist Mari Kvien Brunvoll. Urheim has also been a member of Gabriel Fliflet’s band Åresong and HP Gundersen’s critically lauded drone band The Last Hurrah. On Sunday 20 March Stein Urheim will present a new commissioned work, “Travelling With the Natural Cosmolodic Orchestra”, at the Voss Jazz Festival together with Per Jørgensen, Kjetil Møster, Mari Kvien Brunvoll, Ole Morten Vågan and Kåre Opheim.

Stein Urheim - Guitars, Vocals, Flutes, Harmonica, Tambura / Slide Tamboura, Bouzouki / Fretless Bouzouki, Tambura / Turkish Tanbur, Mandolin, Zither / Langeleik, Banjo, Loops, Effects
Jørgen Træen - Synth / Modular Synth, Effects