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Metrics

by Stephan Meidell

supported by
Jacopo Norcini Pala
Jacopo Norcini Pala thumbnail
Jacopo Norcini Pala A wonderful, intimate collage of sonic fragments, transforming itself into a kaleidoscopic array of moods and voices without ever letting the lightning out of the bottle. Favorite track: Biotop.
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1.
Baroque I 03:12
2.
Baroque II 03:47
3.
State I 04:31
4.
State II 02:38
5.
State III 05:47
6.
Biotop 12:19
7.
Tauchgang 06:43

about

Techno meets baroque in cult Norwegian guitarist Stephan Meidell’s second Hubro solo album, an immersive sonic journey incorporating electronic beats, treated tape and synthesiser with a re-edited live ensemble including Hardanger fiddle, baroque violin, prepared piano, harpsichord and clarinet.

Although the phrase has become almost meaningless through TV talent-show discourse, it’s tempting to describe the experience of listening to Stephan Meidell’s ‘Metrics’ as “a journey”. While there’s no obvious narrative connecting the seven separate pieces that go to make up the album, its restless rhythmic patterning of sound on sound keeps you constantly on the move, travelling from one imagined place or interior space to another, from track to track and beginning to end. ‘Metrics’ also works on several levels simultaneously, so that its secrets are released incrementally, over time. If ever an album demanded to be listened to while lying on the floor in the dark, this is it.

What Meidell – whose considerable track record we will come back to – has achieved here is extraordinary, signalling the arrival of a major European voice in a musical area that as yet has no real name. Indeed, you can argue that ‘Metrics’ presents a new form of electro-acoustic art somewhere between sound and music, and between improvisation and composition, that defies all the usual categories, whether post-jazz, post-rock or post-anything. And while Meidell – who’s 34 and on this album has worked between Bergen and Berlin – is, among other things, a guitarist by trade, this doesn’t sound like a guitarist’s album, although there are lots of strings on it. Importantly (and in sharp contrast to his solo debut, ‘Cascades’, also on Hubro), ‘Metrics’ is very much the product of an ensemble, with Meidell picking specific players, helping to guide their improvisations and then editing and shaping the results.

The contributions of the various personnel, most of whom have a connection with Meidell through other groups and projects, are vital. By bringing together different musical registers, both through the instruments employed (some of which have very specific cultural associations – like the Hardanger fiddle of Erlend Apneseth, or the harpsichord, or the prepared piano, or the digital sampler), and also through the types of music involved, from techno/electronica to the classical baroque, and from musique concrete to prog-rock to contemporary audio-art, Meidell effectively creates his own palette of sounds, and his own original contexts in which to use them. As a consequence, form and content seem to neatly align, the one echoing the other.

There’s also a very winning sense of playfulness to Meidell’s methods, which works against the over-earnest, goatee-stroking, caricature of seriousness sometimes associated with experimental music-makers and listeners. Here, electronic beats might owe their provenance to the manipulation of a mixer without any input, as if some ghost DJ were communicating through the ether, while one’s concentration is continually being refocused by surprising or jarring juxtapositions, as when the drip of what might be synthesised raindrops is heard against what could either be the distressed strings of a baroque violin, or a chair leg being scraped along the floor. As with so much of ‘Metrics’, it’s difficult to tell what’s there and what’s not, or how to separate the audio-real from the audio-hallucination.

As ‘Metrics’ did not arrive, as it were, fully formed, it’s useful to check its immediate antecedents in Meidell’s already crowded catalogue of recordings. Last year the debut album of Erlend Apneseth trio, where Stephan´s guitars and electronics play a key role got rave reviews. His previous solo set, ‘Cascades’ (2014), really was a guitarist’s album, with its origins in long, site-specific improvisations in the reverberant spaces of decommissioned factory buildings and silos in Bergen, Norway. The three albums he has made with the trio Cakewalk (2012-17) also contribute to our understanding of ‘Metrics’ through their irreverent approach to the manipulation of sound, crash-editing wildly different genres into new mutant forms. The other key text to consider is probably ‘Hyphen’ (2016) by Strings & Timpani, his duo with the drummer Øyvind Hegg-Lunde. Here, a concern with creating catchy rhythmic ‘cells’ through careful layering and repetition anticipates the fascination with rhythm – and its arhythmic or atonal opposites – we find in ‘Metrics’.

But whatever the lineage, whatever the influences, ‘Metrics’ signals a new departure, and a new intensity of approach. It also marks Stephan Meidell as someone to watch very closely from now on. He’s on a journey.

Forced by the need to play quietly while staying in a thin-walled apartment in Berlin, Stephan Meidell plugged into his computer, put on his headphones and began to compose. “Maybe because of the plucked-violin sound of my acoustic guitar, or because of the tonalities and tuning I worked with, the word “baroque” started floating to the surface, giving me the idea of involving instruments from that era.”

The result, ‘Metrics’, is a wholly engaging suite of compositions/improvisations in sound and music that’s quite unlike anything else out there, and as close to an audio-art installation as it is to a conventional album.

credits

released April 28, 2017

Stephan Meidell: guitars, drum machine, no-input mixer, tape machine and synth

Magda Mayas: prepared piano
improvised with an arsenal of effects and amps in
big factory spaces. I often find it helpful to progress
and jolt my creativity by simply changing my working
environment. This time around, I also changed my material
drastically. I wanted to have an underlying rhythmic
foundation in my music, and to try to find different ways
metrics could be a driving force or undercurrent in an
open music context. After spending a lot of time the
last few years trying to investigate every potential sound
my electric guitar could make through preparations and
electronic devices, I wanted to work more in the acoustic
realm.
Maybe because of the plucked-violin sound of my
acoustic guitar, or because of the tonalities and tuning
I worked with, the word “baroque” started floating to the
surface, giving me the idea of involving instruments from
that era. I later learned that the tuning of my guitar
actually matched the lower tuning used in baroque music,
so somehow this justified my initial instincts. The
meaning of the word “baroque” has to do with elaborate
ornamentation and extravagance, but also something
irregular in shape. I found that this fits the
music I was writing very well.
During the project I realized that what I actually
wanted to do was to expand the textures of the amplified
acoustic guitar – to make an ensemble grow out of the
sounds I was already making.
With this in mind, the instrumentation and musicians
I wanted to involve slowly took shape: A combination of
artists working with improvisation, baroque, new music
and Norwegian folk music. Magda Mayas (prepared piano),
Hans Knut Sveen (harpsichord), Stefan Lindvall (baroque
violin), Morten Barrikmo (clarinet) and Erlend Apneseth
(Hardanger fiddle).
I had never written music for an ensemble like this
before, and since the process of composing also was about
discovering new possibilities through improvisation,
I had to develop my own method. I wanted to keep the
intent and attitude of improvisation in the music and I was concerned that the intuitiveness and spontaneity of the musicians might get lost when dealing with my non-
idiomatic blend of styles. I also wanted to find a way
for them to improvise in the studio without reacting
to each other – a situation where I, both as a composer
and performer, was the only link between them. I used
different methods with different musicians. However,
improvisation with instructions was the most important
element. Some parts were written out, but most are a
result of discussing the intentions with the artists,
post-production and editing. Some were also merely
imitating a pre-recorded track,like the way Barrikmo
is mimicking the high-frequency synth tracks I made for
“Biotop”.
Working with these musicians was – without exception –
inspiring and filled with a great energy and openness to
the process. Thank you so much for your music!
Bergen, 15th of December 2016
Stephan Meidell
(all tracks except ‘Biotop’)
Erlend Apneseth: Hardanger fiddle
(all tracks except ‘Biotop’)
Morten Barrikmo: clarinets
(all tracks except ‘Tauchgang’)
Hans Knut Sveen: harpsichord
(all tracks except ‘Biotop’)
Stefan Lindvall: baroque violin

All music composed by Stephan Meidell

Recorded at various locations in Bergen, Norway and Berlin, Germany
Mixed by Stephan Meidell at Kakofon Studio, Bergen, Norway
Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, Germany
Supported by Bergen kommune and Komponistenes Vederlagsfond

Thank you: Eva & Jonah, Andreas Meland, Øyvind Hegg-Lunde, Magda, Erlend, Morten, Hans Knut, Stefan and the Grieg Academy.

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