On Langeleik, two pioneers of alternative pedal-steel meet across oceans, time, and temperament. Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Geir Sundstøl and London-based pedal-steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte merge the instrument’s ghostly resonance with field recordings, ambient drones and vintage synths to create a sound that feels as fluid and alive as the rivers that inspired it.
Geir and Joe got in touch in 2016 when Joe, exploring beyond his usual listening habits, stumbled upon Geir’s debut Furulund. Struck by its hypnotic slide melodies, he reached out. A musical friendship grew through years of conversation, sharing curiosities and visiting each other’s studios in Oslo and London.
In August 2024, during a break from touring…
Tag Archive: Hubro
With Minnesota, guitarist and composer Trond Kallevåg deepens his image-rich sound – a warm, wistful universe where the atmosphere of Norway’s rugged west coast drifts seamlessly into the wide horizons of the American Midwest.
Drawing inspiration from traditional music, jazz, ambient folk, emigration stories, and rare photographs unearthed during an artist residency on the unique and remote island of Træna in Northern Norway , Kallevåg weaves a sound world rooted in the Norwegian Coast – yet forever gazing westward.
Minnesota marks Kallevåg’s fourth album on the acclaimed Hubro label, following Bedehus & Hawaii (2019), Fengselsfugl (2021), and Amerikabåten (2023). As on his previous…
A dry mouth, sore muscles and a pounding headache led Liv Andrea Hauge to write the music on this short but deep-reaching record. The Norwegian pianist was tucked up in bed, sweating and shivering with high fever. Through the murky fug of ill health, she identified a series of rhythmic and melodic shapes that now form the third release by her thoughtful, efficient trio.
…The record explores the feeling of being “døgnvill” – a Norwegian term describing the sensation of being out of sync with time and reality, like during jet lag or insomnia. The music inhabits this liminal space between structure and freedom, consciousness and dream.
Half of the compositions were written while pianist and composer Liv Andrea Hauge was…
For as long as it has existed, it seems as if the piano has been subject to opinions and experiments of various types. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the player piano was a popular self-playing piano with a mechanism that operated the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls to play popular tunes.
Later on, it became more fashionable for pianists to play inside the piano lid, for example by striking or plucking strings, by vibrating strings using an ebow and/or inserting items such as door keys or ping pong balls onto the strings, which made some sounds unlike an untreated piano. In addition, opinions differ greatly about the ideal tuning to make a piano sound as good as possible.
All of which brings us to Jo David Meyer Lysne,…
On the album Mirra, the innovative folk musician Benedicte Maurseth once again invites us to the vast Hardangervidda plateau—this time with a focus on the wild reindeer.
When Benedicte Maurseth released the album Hárr in 2022, the visionary Hardanger fiddle player was praised for creating a masterpiece. Her blend of the distinctive sound of the Hardanger fiddle and the use of concrete sounds from wildlife immersed listeners in a unique soundscape.
For Hárr, she received the prestigious Nordic Music Prize, and the album was named one of the world’s top ten folk music releases of the year by The Guardian.
Now she releases the long-awaited follow-up Mirra, which, like Hárr, is a concept album where…
In late winter 2024, pianist Kjetil Mulelid, saxophonist Kika Sprangers, bassist Mats Eilertsen, and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen gathered in Per Oddvar’s homey surroundings in Lommedalen. Everyone brought a few tunes and ideas, then hit “record” and let the music take shape. It turned out to be a beautiful first encounter, leading to the recording of the album Morning.
Kika and Kjetil share: “No take was the same. A ‘take two’ often tends to refer back to ‘take one,’ especially if take one sounds good. But with Mats and Per Oddvar, each take went in its own unique direction. The interplay was fantastic — it felt completely natural and organic. Even though we didn’t know each other very well yet, we were able to follow each other’s musical…
Sakte Film (Slow motion) is the sixth and most ambitious solo album of Norwegian, Oslo-based guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Geir Sundstøl celebrating his tenth anniversary as a solo artist. This genre-defying, with layers of resonant string instruments, flirts with close and far folk traditions, blues, country music, jazz, space music à la Tangerine Dream, and new age.
..Sundstøl has had a rich and varied career, to say the least. Within the HUBRO universe, his music has remained a pillar for years, and Sakte Film is no exception. However, this release embraces a broader scope, with multiple layers of strings that create even more room for resonance and exploration. Sundstøl explains: “What sets this album apart from my previous ones is,…