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Artist: Jon Balke
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Jon Balke:

Skrifum

Norway’s Jon Balke proposes a new sonic dimension with Skrifum, continuing a line of inquiry begun with Warp (2016) and Discourses (2020), solo piano albums which also processed the acoustic environment in which the music was heard. Skrifum, however, takes things a step further, as is apparent from the outset.  Where the piano music of Discourses was threaded with subtly collaged ‘field recordings’, like subliminal messages from the outside world, Skrifum is more self-contained, a deeper journey into the sound-universe of the piano itself.

Balke’s newest solo music is made with the aid of electronic audio tool the Spektrafon, live processing software which he helped develop together with technology professor Anders Tveit at the Norwegian Academy of Music.  Using this interface, Balke is now able to directly manipulate ambient audio sound from the piano in real time – pulling out frequencies and sustaining them as chords of harmonics, showers of sparkling overtones, or eerie drones. Activated and energized reverberation thus becomes new material for improvised interaction and dialogue, often with quite beautiful results.

Skrifum means “write” in Icelandic and, for all the technological sophistication employed, there is an almost calligraphic quality to the melodic lines and sounds that Balke carefully shapes along the way: writing, drawing and designing the music in the changing light and lengthening shadows cast by the processed material. “The Spektrafon’s sound feeds back in ways that demand space,” says Jon Balke. “So I take that opportunity to play mostly monophonically and to focus on every single note and its weight and position in the soundscape.”

Jon Balke:

Hafla

Hafla is the third album from Norwegian keyboardist-composer-arranger Jon Balke’s Siwan, launched in 2007 as a meeting point for musicians of strikingly different backgrounds and experiences.  Siwan celebrates the concept of coexistence and cooperation, making the case for the positive attributes of cultural diversity, as it looks back into history and forwards towards new models for shared work.  The legends and the poetry of al-Andalus continue to inspire Balke and company, but this is contemporary music shaped by players who choose to listen, respond and adapt.