In the fifteen years since they formed Alog, Norwegian musicians Espen Sommer Eide and Dag-Are Haugan have released some extremely original and fascinating records, made from a vast array of acoustic and electronic instruments, most of which they build themselves, With their new album, their fifth, they have worked with a number of other musicians and involved them in the creative process. In its complete version, the album stretches over four LPs and 2 and a half hours. Here, Alog talk about their formative years, how the new album came together, working with collaborators and how playing live has to be approached very differently.

It’s been quite a while since your last record was released. Besides working on the new album, what have you been up to?
Espen Sommer Eide: It is not important for us to release something every year. We like to take our time, and also like to bring some fresh ideas and directions before we are ready to release something. This of course often means that we need to program new software, build instruments and experiment from the ground up before we are happy.

What are your respective backgrounds? Did you grow up in families where music was important? How did you start making music?
ESE: Well, I definitely grew up in a musical home. My father played in the Norwegian prog rock band Popol Vuh (actually got into a lawsuit with the German band over that name…) and my aunt played classical oboe, and during my childhood, she taught me how to play various medieval instruments (she was an enthusiast for re-creating original instruments of the era).
Dag-Are Haugan: I did not grow up in a musical home. At least no-one in my family played any instruments. The interest in recorded music didn’t go any further than the top of the pop charts. I never learned to play any instruments when I was growing up, and I still have a love/hate relationship with instruments. I guess I have a more punk-attitude towards them.

You formed Alog in the late nineties. How did you meet, and what made you decide to start working together?
D-AH: The story goes: In Tromsø in the early nineties, in the middle of a concert with my shoe-gaze band Kant, a stranger from the audience jumped up on stage and started playing along on synth. He was immediately thrown off the stage by the strict band leader. This stranger was non other than Espen. Later on he got in touch to try to explain his strange behaviour and we started working together. I guess we were both fed up with the music we were playing in various bands at the time so we wanted to make something fresh, something freer. It was just for the joy of the experiment, we had no intention of releasing anything, but when Espen released his first album as Phonophani on Biosphere’s label (ed: Biophon) in 1998, Rune Grammofon’s Rune Kristoffersen got in touch and wondered if he had something else going on that might fit his newly started label. So we sent him a demo and it became Red Shift Swing.

Right from Red Shift Swing, your sound has combined acoustic sounds and electronic processing. How did this develop? Was it always what you wanted to achieve?
ESE: We didn’t have any plans for it to turn out this way. Often in hindsight it may seem that way, but one always has to remember that the development of a certain ‘sound’ and method is a very organic and complex process. For example when Alog started out, the possibility to manipulate sound through software on a PC (of the cheaper kind) was just starting thanks to advances in technology. Previously you had to either use expensive synthesizers, analogue equipment or samplers with limited memory etc. So it was all new territory at the time, like a whole new field of art opening up to everybody working from their bedroom studios. This new creative freedom was a great attraction to us at the time. So we collected all our instruments, the big-band record collection of Espen’s dad and other sound-making toys in a room (actually the basement of a kindergarten we could borrow) and started experimenting. We did not, as many others at the time in Tromsø, use synthesizers and electronic sounds as a starting point, so that is one reason our sound was a strange hybrid from the start.

The new album was recorded over quite a long period of time, and in a very different way to previous records. Did you have a preconceived idea of what you wanted to achieve with it, or did it develop in a more organic way?
D-AH: The only idea we had before starting making the new album was that we shouldn’t have any preconceived idea with it except make it as loose as we could and painting with the largest brush-strokes, making it a contrast from previous more homogenous miniatures made with the tiniest hairs of the smallest brushes. And we wanted it big – not modest in any way. We like to think of Unemployed as having been assembled, like on an assembly line in a factory. We asked some musicians to compose complete pieces for our album (without any tinkering from our side except mixing and mastering) and to make sounds together with us. Or we made tracks ourselves, either as a duo or individually. Actually it’s in line with an old Alog idea of having no hierarchy amongst sounds and sound sources, meaning it doesn’t really matter where the sound comes from, if it comes from some instrument (ours or other’s) or from recordings from a horse-race or some movie as long as the sound serves a purpose in the composition. So we had this vague ‘theme’ of work and non-work, rules and freedom, employment and unemployment as a guide.

Still, the (4xvinyl LP) album is absolutely meant as a cohesive long-player, as one piece. Each record form a thematic or formal unity that we also think connects with each other. The one record that stands out the most as a separate piece is the ‘black one’ (the other three are white vinyl). This record-within-the-record is made using reel to reel tape-loops, somewhat an homage to pre-digital electronic music pioneers like Arne Nordheim. In general we look for hidden family ties between tracks, so that even if they at first come across as completely different and eclectic they have a distant relationship that will become apparent after some time. This relationship is of course not always harmonious…

You have collaborated with a number of musicians on this album, some of whom you, Espen, had worked with on your last Phonophani album (Sigbjørn Apeland and Jenny Hval), others, like Sheriffs Of Nothingness and Dutch sound poet Jaap Blonk you hadn’t. How did these collaborations happen?
ESE: Unemployed was assembled over a period of three years. Some recordings were done with a long-time collaborator of ours, Sigbjørn Apeland who happened to have an enormous collection of vintage harmoniums and other keyboard instruments in a disused church in Bergen. Sadly the local municipality was in the process of throwing him out of the church, so we had to go there and put up our microphones before it was too late. We also recorded the minimalist fiddle improvisation-duo Sheriffs of Nothingness (Ole-Henrik Moe and Kari Rønnekleiv). And we asked Signe Lidén (resonating everyday objects), Jenny Hval (vocals) and the legendary Dutch sound poet Jaap Blonk (vocals) to send us some material. In these cases we often started by giving the artists some rules: we told them what we wanted from them structurally, harmonically, particular ways of singing etc. Then we received a lot of raw material they have made according to our instructions in our Dropbox, and then we built our track around that, or incorporated their material into our music. The collaborations often happened because we asked different artists to work with us, people that had something unique on their sonic palette that we thought we could integrate with our aesthetic.

On the album, you’ve used some old recordings which were taken from a collection of 78 RPM records that you apparently found while touring. How did you come across those, and what type of records were they? How did you incorporate them in your recordings?
ESE: Being record collectors we get hold of records all the time, so it is not easy to pinpoint in the end exactly where all the bits and pieces we sample come from. To finish up the new album we had to isolate ourselves, so we chose to travel to the far north east of Norway – Kirkenes, a mining town on the border with Russia. Espen’s family is from that place so they have a summer house there, near the huge artificial lake and mountains of small rocks created by the mining blasts. In that old workers’ home, there was an old Gerrard 78RPM player and a selection of old Norwegian and Swedish records (stone-cakes as they are called in Norwegian), which made it onto Unemployed, here and there.

Do you think that the way you’ve approached the new album has changed the way you will work in the future?
ESE: Yes, it is always like that. Either a future album will be a reaction against this one, or it will further develop on it. In a way our last three albums – Miniatures, Amateur and Unemployed, feel like a trilogy of sorts, and somehow Unemployed is the end of this cycle. But it is too early to say for sure.

The vinyl version of Unemployed contains almost eighty minutes of music not available anywhere else. Why did you choose to keep almost half of the project for this very limited release and not make it available elsewhere or on a different format?
ESE: For this album we decided not to be too perfectionist in our compositions and rather exhibit the compositional process, the experiments, the rough sketches and the stream of ideas that went into it. And therefore this album is quite long; 2.5 hours long over four full-length vinyls. Early on we wanted to do a quadruple album, but at the time it seemed like a megalomaniac idea that we didn’t think we would achieve, knowing our perfectionist attitude and also the general direction of the music business towards easy consumable packages. But gradually we started putting it all together and in cooperation with Rune Kristoffersen at the label we started to see how it could all come together as a 4xLP. Of course it is still quite a strange format, and such a long album really does not fit either CD or download in our minds. For example: You have to spend some time with a vinyl record, listening to one side after another. We imagine most people will enjoy a side better and maybe just keep playing that side over again a few times. Then you take a break doing something else, and when you return to the record you flip it over and start the next side. Twenty minutes is such a nice and ‘human’ length for a listening experience, also allowing full concentration. These kind of obsolete interactions with an album are really not possible on CD or MP3s.

Still we agree it may seem a bit odd and backwards not to have any download option for the full album, but for now it is an experiment. What is an album like in the 21st century? Is it at all viable as a format anymore? Maybe we will change our minds later on. And of course we are really happy with the tighter, digital version of Unemployed also. It’s just a different experience.

You have often worked with vocalists in the past, or used vocal components in your music, and you have a very particular way to treat the human voice. What does it bring that other instruments don’t?
ESE: Earlier we treated vocals like an instrument, putting in inside the mix like any other sound. But lately we have been experimenting with giving it more space, pushing it to the front. Unemployed is even the first album where we feature lyrics on the cover! What is going on? We asked Nicholas Møllerhaug, also a long-time collaborator of ours, to write some lyrics around the theme of work. We asked Jaap Blonk to sing the text and the challenge was of course that the text is in Norwegian and he didn’t quite know how to pronounce all the sounds. But he did a great job trying! We always enjoy moments where you can hear someone trying and exploring a given situation better than finished perfection. In the background we put a sample of a Saami church choir (recorded in northern Lapland) to give this road-workers’ anthem some ritualistic and holy feel. The result became Bømlo Brenn Om Natta, a song about road-workers putting down asphalt on the island of Bømlo.

There’s currently a double live album available on your website which documents two identical sets recorded in Osaka and Tokyo. Can you tell us more about that particular project, and how your live sets compare to your studio work?
D-AH: Our latest release, Twin concerts, is, as the title suggests, recordings of two concerts. They took place at AD & A Gallery in Osaka and at Super Deluxe in Tokyo in October 2008. This is a very special release that we made in a DIY fashion. We wanted to release fifty copies of the two concerts on CD, so we asked Junko Harada, a Manga artist to draw a fifty frame story for us called Tokyo Heaven and she drew every square of Manga-magic by hand directly on each sleeve. Even all the liner-notes are handwritten by her on the sleeves. So each CD is a unique artwork. You can still order it from our web page but be quick about it!

I’m not sure if it is our way of working in the studio that influences our live sets or if it’s the other way round, I guess it is feeding both ways. For instance my reel-to-reel tape loop contribution on Unemployed is a direct result of a live set we did at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam last year. We also played live with the Sheriffs Of Nothingness before we invited them to the studio. We have never made it easy for ourselves when it comes to live work. Using an unpractical blend of acoustic instruments, home-made instruments, electronics and computers. We have always acknowledged the fact that live and studio are two very separate things and have tried to bring another kind of concentrated energy to our concerts. When we play as a duo we have to be creative to find a way to present complex material, without relying too much on pre-recorded backing tracks. We’re not particularly impressed with musicians who looks like they have a daft day at the office sitting behind those tables covered with black cloth, with their Macs on toop when they perform live, even though their  music can be interesting. If the studio is an elephant, that works slowly but has a gigantic eye for details and a great memory, then the live set is a cheetah that moves fast, is super-focused and hopes to bring home the gazelle.

Are you planning to tour following the release of Unemployed?
ESE: There are plans for individual concerts, but nothing set yet. In the course of our touring with the Amateur album a few years ago our setup for live shows grew out of control and became a huge theatre of strange musicians and homemade instruments. It also became increasingly difficult to travel around with the show, in terms of logistics and costs. So we are not sure about doing a full blown tour again. We like the idea of having our concerts be special and unique events and need to develop them individually to achieve this.

Back in 2005, you released Catch That Totem! on Melektronikk, a compilation of previously unreleased material which also included three remixes I believe. Why did you release this on Melektronikk rather than Rune Grammofon? You have also released music on quite a few other labels (Creaked Records, Fat Cat, En/Off), often for very limited releases. Is this a way for you to explore different sides of what Alog is?
ESE: Not all kinds of releases fit Rune Grammofon, and also it is nice to cooperate with different people and audiences on other labels from time to time.

Espen, you also release music as Phonophani, and, as with Alog, you have increasingly been working with other people (Nicholas H. Møllerhaug, Maja Ratkje, Jenny Hval, David Grubs…) on your recent records. Is the way you approach your solo work very different from your work with Alog, and are you actively seeking collaborators for that project?
ESE: I don’t see the two projects as completely separate or different, very often I have released a Phonophani album at almost the same time as an Alog release. So I often experiment with ideas as Phonophani that make it into Alog and vice versa. The only difference is that I have the last say in Phonophani and don’t have to listen to Dag-Are Haugan, the last great European dictator!

Dag-Are, you released a solo album some years ago which was only published as a limited edition of just 500 copies. Would you ever consider re-releasing it to make it available to a wider audience, and do you think you will follow it up with another record?
D-AH: Actually, at one point we had the idea that the ‘black album’ in Unemployed was to be the follow-up to my solo-album, included in the Alog assembled package, but in the end we chose not to label it as such. But the track titles have a direct link to my album 9 Solitaires as they are called Solitaire 10, 11 and 12. A great part of the work on the ‘black album’ was done with me using mainly reel-to-reel tape loops in a similar aesthetic fashion as my solo LP. So in a sense that is the follow-up album. I actually have thought about re-releasing 9 Solitaires but I’m not sure how or if there is a need. Maybe it’s better to do something new. An upside to working alone is the absence of the other great European dictator breathing down my neck.

What is next for Alog?
D-AH: We don’t know, we are both a bit drained after the massive quadruple project.

If you had to name five records, books or films that have made a lasting impression on you as artists, which ones would they be?
ESE: We are not big fans of lists.

Email interview January 2012. Thank you to Espen Sommer Eide, Dag-Are Haugan and Jim Johnstone

Alog | Rune Grammofon

ALOG
Unemployed
RCD2116
Rune Grammofon 2012
14 Tracks. 76mins30secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

Even put against the monumental variety of the Rune Grammofon catalogue, Norwegian duo Alog have always stood out from the crowd. Formed by Espen Sommer Eide and Dag-Are Haugan in the late nineties while they both lived in Tromsø, northern Norway, they have, over the course of four albums for Rune Grammofon plus a handful of limited releases elsewhere, carved a very particular niche for themselves. Combining acoustic and electric instrumentation, part of which is custom-built, with electronic processing, the pair continue to invent a totally unique and often fascinating sound world away from pretty much anything else.

In its full version, presented as a quadruple LP, of which only 300 copies have been pressed, Unemployed contains over two hours of new music, of which approximately half has been squeezed into the more widely available CD version. Recorded over the course of three years in many locations around the globe, this latest offering, the band’s first since their 2007 album Amateur, is much more of a collaborative effort than any of its predecessors. Acting as curators, Eide and Haugan invited musicians and friends along, from harmonium player Sigbjørn Apeland or fiddle duo Sheriffs Of Nothingness to vocalists Jenny Hval and Jaap Blonk, to perform and contribute compositions to the project. Often sounding like a scrapbook overflowing with strands and concepts, some more developed than others, based on whatever was at their disposal at the time of recording, Unemployed is a vastly eclectic and vibrant collection which, while never following any particular thread for very long, is far from lacking direction.

At its most acoustic end, Unemployed is a bubbling patchwork of sounds and textures which extends from Sigbjørn Apeland’s haunting harmoniums on Orgosolo II or, later on, as he brings in Fender Rhodes, percussions and ukulele, on Last Days At The Assembly Line, Bømlo Brenn Om Natta or closing piece Apeland, to the angular caustic train-like saw and fiddle contribution from Sheriffs Of Nothingness’s Kari Rønnekleiv and Ole Henrik Moe on Last Days At The Assembly Line. Later on, their input is much more subtle and discreet on Spanish Record No. 9 as Alog toy with distorted electronics and old recordings. Orgosolo I, which opens, initially sounds entirely acoustic, but it soon becomes apparent that these components have been substantially manipulated.

Over the years, Alog have used the human voice to greatly expand their sonic palette, and they do so here again. While fragments of old recordings are scattered on various tracks, most prominently on Zebra or Baklandet, Dutch poet and sound artist Japp Blonk injects Bømlo Brenn Om Natta with somewhat unsettling guttural phrases as he moves from inquisitive to much more haunting and desperate tones, while Et Besøk resonates with Jenny Hval’s voice, processed into strips of various strengths and woven together to form a beautiful ethereal fabric.

Occasionally, Alog swaps acoustic grain for resolutely more electronics soundscapes. On the title track for instance, they deploy a bouncy beat upon which they progressively add more components, and while Sheriffs Of Nothingness bring in touches of musical saw, this remains partly hidden behind the duo’s pool of processed sounds. On The Mountaineer, the balance between acoustic and electronic is less clearly defined, but here, the pair create a peaceful atmospheric set up which is continuously skips and glitches. Januar later sees Eide and Haugan devise an elegant ambient techno framework which slowly builds up from a minimal electronic pattern into a dreamy masterpiece as they bring in distorted vocal textures during the second half of the piece.

If Alog have always favoured an exploratory approach for their records, they, until now, usually did so very meticulously from the comfort of their studio. Here, they open up greatly and, having established fruitful exchanges with their chosen contributors, they have assembled here their most fascinating and deeply joyful and invigorating record to date.

5/5

Alog | Rune Grammofon
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Twenty Centuries Of Stony Sleep
RCD2100
Rune Grammofon 2010
13 Tracks. 75mins24secs

Amazon UK: CD US: CD | LP Norman Records: CD | LP

Twelve years on from Supersilent’s monumental triple CD debut release, Rune Grammofon have reached a new milestone with this, their hundredth release. Twenty Centuries Of Stony Sleep collects thirteen tracks, twelve of which exclusive to this album, from quite a wide cross-section of the label’s roster, ranging from long-serving acts (Alog, Scorch Trio, Supersilent, Ultralyd, In The Country, Deathprod or Maja Ratjke) to more recent joiners (Espen Eriksen Trio, Puma, Bushman’s Revenge or new signing Jenny Hval).

There are few record labels who have developed such a strong and consistent aesthetic as Rune Grammofon, not only visually, there is not one release which hasn’t had the Kim Hiorthøy treatment, but also through its catalogue, which, in the case of Rune Grammofon stretches from abstract jazz, traditional Scandinavian folk to ambient electronic music and from ethereal pop to avant-garde classical to heavy metal, always with a strong exploratory angle at its core.

Unlike the two Money Will Ruin Everything retrospectives or Until Human Voices Wake Us And We Drown, the collection published to celebrate the label’s fiftieth release, which all intended to offer a comprehensive, if not by any stretch of the imagination exhaustive, round up of the label’s activity in the years leading to their respective publication, Twenty Centuries Of Stony Sleep is more akin to a snapshot of the current roster and of the music that Rune Grammofon continues to champion. There are some notable absentees here (Arve Henriksen, Susanna & The Magical Orchestra, Phonophani, Scorch Trio, Humcrush), dropped in favour of artists who, for the most part, are fairly recent addition to the RG stable.

Considering some of the utterly angular and challenging music released on the label over the years, the mood is overall rather subdued here. There is the wonderfully melodic and rich piano-led jazz of In The Country (Slow Down) and Espen Eriksen Trio (Ambitions), the equally evocative  and delicate pop tendencies of Hilde Marie Kjersem (That Day In The Shower) or Rockettothesky‘s Jenny Hval, who delivers here one of the standout moments of the record with the magnificent Golden Locks, the atmospheric escapades of Ultralyd (Salinity And Brine), Puma (3 A.M. Moth) and Supersilent (7.1), the avant rock effervescence of The Low Frequency In Stereo (Aux Club) or Bushman’s Revenge (Barbara). There are however some more radical moments, from the heavily distorted and abrasive short opening Alog contribution (My Card Is 7), and the complex and playful Discipline Of Undiscipline from Stian Westerhus, to Maja Ratkje’s uncompromising Breathe, for which she miaows and purrs over very effective textural drones, built it seems primarily from processed vocals.

The album, released on CD and double LP, is also due to be made available as a special edition box set, limited to only 100 copies, which will include both the CD and double LP, plus a live recording of Supersilent, captured in Paris in 2000, and a special 12” record with two locked grooves from an unknown artist. With Twenty Centuries Of Stony Sleep, Rune Grammofon offer once again a compelling collection of experimental music which while focussing on just a handful of artists and remaining for the most part a surprisingly tamed record, is as essential as any of their releases.

4.7/5

Rune Grammofon
Amazon UK: CD US: CD | LP Norman Records: CD | LP

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Money Will Ruin Everything: The Second Edition
RCD2072
Rune Grammofon 2009
25 Tracks. 152mins42secs

Buy: CD

‘It’s hard work to sell Rune CD outside of a small group of freaks’. To celebrate its first five years of activity, Norwegian label Rune Grammofon issued Money Will Ruin Everything, a beautiful limited collection documenting the label’s first few years spent charting the outer reaches of the music industry, spread over two CDs and presented with a book designed by Kim Hiorthøy. Fast forward five years and a few months, and it is time for label owner Rune Kristoffersen to look back once again and take stock of one of the most eclectic and forward-thinking catalogue around. And once again, Kim Hiorthøy, who is still single-handedly responsible for the visual identity of the label, including its occasional advertising, has designed a beautiful artefact, which collects not only the two CDs of this second edition of Money Will Ruin Everything, introduced by Geoff Travis and Robert Fricke, but also essays by Wire collaborator Rob Young and design consultant Adrian Shaughnessy, photographs and artwork reproductions.

The statement opening this review, sent via email to label owner and creative lead Rune Kristoffersen by a distributor, is an increasingly pressing concern for him, as he reflects on the plummeting CD sales the label has been the victim of in the last couple of years. In an interview with Hiorthøy published as part of this release, he deplores the fact that CDs, a format that has served his label well, are progressively disappearing to make way for MP3 files of inferior sound quality. This makes this release even more unique and brave. Bravery is however nothing new when it comes to Rune Grammofon. The label’s first release was, after all, a triple album by an outfit then largely unknown, Supersilent. The gamble paid off though, cementing both Supersilent as one of the most important experimental jazz acts to have come out of Norway, and Rune Grammofon as an uncompromising label.

This second edition of Money Will Ruin Everything, subtitled But The Music Goes On Forever, document the releases of the label since 2003. Featuring tracks ranging from visionary improvised jazz (Supersilent, Arve Henriksen, Scorch Trio, Eivind Opsvik Overseas, Box) and all-out experimentation (Ultralyd & N-Ensemble, Maja Ratkje,  Alog & Spunk) to beautifully crafter electronica (Phonophani, Skyphone, Deathprod, Svalastog) and surprisingly smooth and gentle pop music (Susanna, with and without her Magical Orchestra, Jessica), this line-up is an undeniable testament to the sprawling reach of the label. Deliberately juxtaposed, with very little apparent regard for progression or chronology, the tracks collected here, some dating a few years, some so new they haven’t yet been released, draw an extremely detailed map of the label’s outputs. In the first half hour alone, the contrast between the elegant electronic formations of Skyphone’s Cloudpanic, the heavy-handed Scorch Trio entry, Hys, the more nuanced Huntsville offering, Will Goes Hunting, or Conditions For A Piece Of Music II, the dense electro-acoustic journey carved by Ultralyd and N-Ensemble, couldn’t be greater. Yet, the aesthetic that has been at the core of the label for the last ten years binds all these together. So much so that it is actually hard to isolate any particular highlights here. Very much like on MWRE 1, the scope of this collection satisfies any particular mood, and highlights can change from one listen to the next. At times, it is the breezy elegance of Opsvik & Jennings’s Leaves And Smoke, the delicate traditional Norwegian folk swathes of Nils Økland’s Passacaglia or the ethereal brushes of Arve Henriksen’s No Horizon that captivates, while at others, the mind is caught by the prog energy of Shining’s 21st Century Schizoid Man, the sheer brutality of BOX’s Untitled 6 or the otherworldly escapades of Supersilent’s 6.1.

Even more so than with MWRE 1, one is pushed into the darkest, most inaccessible corners of Rune Grammofon here, and every time, it turns out to be a totally unique and fascinating enchanted world. That after a monumental piece of heavy noisy rock can rise a wonderfully delicate and fragile slice of futuristic jazz, or that a complex exposé in contemporary classical can give way to a carefully crafted piece of electronic music or a disconcertingly ice-cold pop song featuring only piano, voice and discreet electronics is what Rune Grammofon is all about. May it take an army of freaks to ensure that there are plenty more editions of Money Will Ruin Everything.

4.9/5

Rune Grammofon
Buy: CD

ALOG
Amateur
RCD2069
Rune Grammofon 2007
12 Tracks. 59mins34secs

Thanks to tirelessly inquisitive minds and an unquenchable thirst for sound processessing, Norwegian duo Alog have, in just three albums, stretched their musical universe beyond recognition. In their hands, nothing ever sounds totally ordinary, and as their approach as become more experimental with each release, moving from largely electronic structures to much more delicate soundscapes built around acoustic instrumentations and found sounds, they have developed a truly unique semantic and continue to refine it. Alog deal with sound on a large scale, taking as much consideration perfecting elements of their tracks which are not directly within audible range as they do crafting overhead components, resulting in extremely detailed and complex pieces more fitting to avant-garde than to traditional electronic music.

Following last year’s excellent Catch That Totem! published on Melektronikk, which collected some rare and previously unreleased material, Eide and Haugan return to Rune Grammofon with their fourth album. With this opus, the pair do not quite revise their work ethic as drastically as they have done in the past, but instead refine techniques applied on 2005’s Miniatures and manage to produce a record which is at once more complex and more accessible.

Amateur, here used in the context of ‘person who appreciates’, was recorded in various locations on the west coast of Norway, especially in schools, where the pair, accompanied by Nicholas H. Møllerhaug and regular Nils Økland collaborator Sigbjørn Apeland, made use of the sometime rudimentary facilities at hand. At times, the quartet found themselves stranded in one location for days because of bad weather and passed time by building their own instruments, adding to the eclectic sources used across the album. The result is an incredibly dense tapestry of sounds and noises, at times used in their barest form, at others treated and processed beyond recognition. Opener Son Of King is a bubbling piece on which Møllerhaug’s vocal acts as a continuous thread throughout. Various phrases are chopped up and re-assembled in apparently random fashion, creating a strangely disconnected tale from which pretty much only the title can be heard intelligibly, over a backdrop of wood and metal percussions which sounds increasingly more like a trotting horse as the track progresses.

At times, Alog seem primarily concerned with the very musical essence of their work, bringing melodies to the forefront, while at others, the focus is much more on the rhythmic aspect of their compositions. It is when the two meet however, like on the fascinating The Beginner, which share with label-mate Svalastog a taste for acoustic loops, that the pair are at their most enchanting. As loops and patterns settle, the track becomes a haunting incantation. A Throne For The Common Man has a similar feel, but the context is very different. Eide and Haugan begin by defining the sonic space with bells and chimes before progressively building a dense layered structure from a variety of acoustic instruments. What results is a grinding groove that absorbs everything in its path. Sleeping Instruments questions of the notion of silence and whether it is a sound in itself. As its title suggest, this piece is entirely built around fragments of sounds sourced from instruments ‘at rest’, whether it is wood contracting or fingers running on the surface of an instrument. The Future Of Norwegian Wood works on a similar principle, but silence is not quite as intrusive here. As various wood sounds are processed and assembled, Alog create a surprisingly consequent piece which comes alive around the three minute mark as a rhythmic sequence is set in motion. The ten-minute Bedlam Emblem sees a dense cloud of saturated noises, which wouldn’t be out of place on a Spunk record, slowly materialise and become overwhelmingly oppressive. On close inspection, this constantly changing ball of sound is made of a multitude of entangled minute debris interacting with each other.

In comparison, Write Your Thoughts In Water or Turn Back. Undo appear almost too straightforward, but there again Alog play with lights and shades to create illusions and deflect the attention away from the painstakingly complex and extremely detailed assemblages that are these tracks and focus instead of the poetry that results.

After ten years, Alog continue to develop and refine their approach to sound, as they move away from recognisable musical forms. As their most abstract record to date, Amateur is surprisingly accessible and playful, and this is certainly what makes Alog one of the most compelling outfits around.

Explore: Alog | Rune Grammofon
Buy: CD | LP

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