Jan Martin Smørdal - Choosing To Sing [Sofa Music]

Put on the circuit via the ever buzzing Norwegian imprint Sofa Music is "Choosing To Sing", the first full on solo album by Jan Martin Smørdal, brought to life with the help of famed Ensemble Neon - a group Smørdal is a member of as well, and trumpet player Eivind Lønning. Inspired by swarm behaviour and other, seemingly chaotic yet well organized, natural phenomena and rhythmic patterns the eight pieces on this 36 minutes spanning longplayer are covering from little more than a minute to up to nine minutes each with a musical range from the crackling Field Recordings vs. UnAmbient minimalism found in the first minutes of the opening "React" before the tune evolves towards ear piercing, crystalline Ambient-leaning floatations, seamlessly progressing into the naturalistic outer space signals audible in "Choosing To Sing I" whilst the short skit that is "Response" provides 64 seconds of extreme, fast paced sonic madness evoking memories of the earliest stages of experimental electronic music creation throughout the 50s and 60s whereas "Call I" caters more traditional composition and phrasings which are willingly morphed and reprocessed to the max. With "Choosing To Sing II" the listener experiences more, this time low-end focused, space transmissions of yearning melancholia and inherent sadness, "Call II" is built on a foundation of varying sinewaves in conjunction with ethereal, chiming clouds of sonic mystery whereas the subsequent "React II" is following on a similar path in terms of mystique and mystery albeit taking these elements to a way noisier, braincell crushing context of swarms of ever buzzing hostile metallic insects before transitioning into multilayered polyrhythmicity whilst the final "Call, But Response" weighs in haunted athmospheres alongside unprocessed tones from the ensembles instruments and amplified eruptions of air escaping from the instruments valves.

Album artwork on Instagram!