Sarah-Jane Summers - Kalopsia [Eighth Nerve Audio 005]

Another one to be released via the Norwegian Eighth Nerve Audio label on February 11th, 2k19 is Sarah-Jane Summer's new album "Kalopsia", an 14 track affair on which the Scottish artist based in Norway explores the musical possibilities opened up by an instrumentation of viola, fiddle and the classic Hardanger fiddle without sticking to traditional contexts, song structures or compositional restrictions. This said, the opener "Lypophrenia" takes us fully by surprise with its dramatic, spiralling nature whereas the following "Scintilla" reveals a more theatrical, fairy-like take on Sarah-Jane Summer's work before "Oneirataxia" digs deep into dystopian, Dark Ambient-resembling atmospheres and "Widdendream" touches base with a lively, yet desperate and somewhat alienated variation of Contemporary Classical in terms of composition and structure. With "Petrichor" we see a century old Nordic Folk tradition coming into play beauteously, "Sussurus" seems to be harking back to early ElectroAcoustic music with all its scraping and hissing atmospheric background noise as a foundation for the artists experimental string works and "Meraki" provides a frolicking, waltzing approach towards uplifting, syncopated repetition of uptempo string motif alterations. Furthermore the subsequent "Hiraeth" indulges deeply in elegic, autumnal sorrow and melancholia, "Reveille" brings forth naturalistic Folk traditionalism once again whilst "Sciamachy" combines distortion, madness and fairylike tonalities within 105 seconds only before "Phosphenes" focuses on creaky, cantankerous grumpiness musically and somehow brings up a picture of a hungover string instrument waking up on a very bad monday morning. Towards the end of the album "Kenopsia" goes down an alley of ultimate fragility whilst coming back to a trance-inducing spiralling musical nature, "Lethophobia" unveils more creaky noises and raw, unprocessed insanity and the final cut "Tacenda", a 62 second spanning miniature, sees Sarah-Jane Summer explore minimalistic Cold Ambient for a goodbye. Check!

Album artwork on Instagram!