Karoline Wallace: Lang vinter
Øra Fonogram
Karoline Wallace wrote the music for Lang vinter (Long Winter) during an exceptionally long 2018 Norwegian winter, yet its contents would enliven any season with listening pleasure. To create the first record issued under her own name on Øra Fonogram, the Norwegian singer, composer, and arranger assembled an Oslo-based octet (herself included) of folk and jazz musicians, many of them well-known for their involvement in Norwegian bands such as Skadedyr, Billy Meier, Molecules, Hullyboo, and Morgonrode.
Recorded at Trondheim's Øra Studio over two days in January 2019 and produced by Wallace, Lang vinter was conceived with the idea of lifting spirits dampened by the grey days of winter whilst also conveying the wonder that sets in as one absorbs the beauty of snow-covered landscapes and savours the stillness and silence of the scene. There's a lightness, too, to Wallace's music that bolsters its appeal; while Lang vinter (the band) executes her material with a requisite degree of seriousness, a track title such as “Nå skal det faen bli vår” (one English translation has it as “Now it will be our hell”) reveals a playful sensibility's also at hand.
Wallace has other irons in the fire, by the way. Her sextet Molecules received strong reviews for its 2017 collaborative release with pianist Erlend Skomsvoll, Louder Than You, and the Bergen-formed trio Lekerommet, which plays music written for children, issued its own album in 2017, Kyllingen som ikke kunne synge. Wallace also sings as a member of Silent Fires, a Norwegian-Italian electroacoustic ensemble, and the quartet Hello Louli, which performs music written by drummer Heloïse Divilly.
With instruments ranging across the sound spectrum, Wallace's album is rich in timbre and personality. An inviting realm is conjured in the opening “Skyer” when her bright voice glides in tandem with Kjetil Jerve's nimble, single-note piano lines, his swing nicely buoyed by double bassist Bjørnar Kaldefoss Tveite and brushes-wielding drummer Øystein Aarnes Vik. Wallace's double-tracked vocal likewise imbues “Ved kjokkenborder” with a joyful, harmonious spirit that saxophonist Arnfinn Gursli Langesæter, flutist Henriette Hvidsten Eilertsen, hardanger fiddler Helga Myhr, and pedal steel player Åsmund Løvland Solberg perpetuate with their own free-spirited expressions. During “Messi,” a gently soaring melody line voiced by a wordless Wallace increases in stateliness when the other instruments join in to amplify the volume level and epic character. Her tunes regularly blur the boundaries separating genres when elements of jazz, pop, and experimental musics surface in varying degrees.
Lang vinter is an album where one is as likely to encounter a melodic jazz vocal number (“A Little Looser”) as a voices-only meditation (“Lo du?”) and creeping dirge (“Grusvei”). While Wallace leads with a light hand, there's no question that, as composer, arranger, and vocalist, she's the one in charge. Yet while that's definitely the case, the players she's recruited for the project are critical to the impact this never less than satisfying recording makes.May 2019