Hans P. Kjorstad – Avkjølingshistorie
Catalogue number: MOT18LP
Release Date: April 29th, 2022

With Avkjølingshistorie (English: A Story of Cooling), fiddle player and composer Hans P. Kjorstad has looked at various defining events in the history of the planet and written music about them.

The composition is an attempt to write music with a historical-essayistic-philosophical-poetic look at subjects related to geology, biology, mysticism and consciousness on several levels. It is a work that tempts to draw the listener into a strange but still vaguely well-known world where one can get a look at mass extinctions, prehistoric animals that play in the waters and on land, how humans find each other in collaboration, and one eventually ends up in our own mechanical age.

Kjorstad: The musical material can be said to be explorations in sound (and thus also abstractions) of the forces of nature. I have researched the earth's geological history and written texts about it based on my own interests. Then I have tried to look at how these ancient structures can be conveyed through what I would call sonic time images.

The composition was prepared with the specific musicians in the ensemble as models and they have thus had a great impact on how this story sounds. Each of the musicians contributes with their own unique sound palette and their personalities have been forming of the roles they have in the piece.

Something about the title: Keeping the temperature below the breaking point has been the difference between life and death throughout the life of this planet. It is clear that it was terribly hot in the beginning. Since then, it has changed a lot - the atmosphere, just like the earth's surface, has been shaped by the forces of nature in interaction with the living organisms with their physical and mental properties. It is interesting to look at these patterns.

Sight is thus the key word in this work. If one is lucky, this is spectacular music in the sense that the listener should be able to imagine what is happening.

As with Kjorstad's previous album, ‘Vendingo utta’om råket’, the vinyl cover is hand-printed with the technique of woodcut by the composer.

DETAILS
Personnel: Hans P. Kjorstad: composition, fiddle, woodcut printmaking and liner notes, Ole-Henrik Moe: viola and bird flute, Inga Margrete Aas: viola da gamba, objects and bird flute, John Andrew Wilhite-Hannisdal: double bass and bird flute, Eivind Lønning: trumpet and bird flute, Marthe Lea: saxophone and water jar, Andreas Hoem Røysum: clarinets and bird flute, Rolf-Erik Nystrøm: saxophones, Fredrik Rasten: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, water jar, objects and bird flute, Anja Lauvdal: just tuned harmonium, grand piano and objects, Michaela Antalová: percussion.

Recorded in Gamle Raadhus, Oslo, 11 April 2021 by Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard.
Mixed by James Welburn and Hans P. Kjorstad, May 2021.
Mastered by Lasse Marhaug in Vesterålen.

Check out hanskjorstad.com for more info.