Utopian Tales

Description

After three original and critically acclaimed albums, the Bergen-based composer enlisted the services of 6 carefully chosen musicians for this new album: Kjetil Møster (Møster!), Mari Kvien Brunvoll (Building Instrument), Per Jørgensen (Jøkleba), Ole Morten Vågan (Trondheim Jazz Orchestra), Jørgen Træen (Sir Dupermann), and Kåre Opheim (Real Ones). Utopian Tales paints a series of beautiful, at times strange, and microtonal tableaux. Just as the rigid divisions of the tempered scale, inherent to Western music, echo the hierarchical structures of society, microtonal music, characterized by the use of intervals smaller than half steps, refers to a more fluid and libertarian social order. Utopian Tales makes this overlap between music and society its main subject, creating a richly imaginative riverine meander through multiple ideas and associations, drawing on references ranging from science fiction and counterculture to alternative art, architecture, and philosophy. Musically, the project is equally ambitious; it features elements of americana (a genre between rock and country), such as Urheim's expert slide guitar playing, combined with electronic atmospheres and other detours into contrasting genres, all supported by the jazz and contemporary aesthetic of an ensemble formed for the occasion, the Cosmolodic Orchestra.