Erik Wollo - Sojourns (Projekt)

What your ears say & what the cover looks like

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what we say

If you need a relaxing Sunday sound bath then check out the reassuringly familiar sounds expertly arranged by Erik Wøllo for Portland's Projekt Records, into a series of softly percussive and gently undulating ambient soundscapes. And breathe....

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what the release notes say

Join veteran Norwegian ambient/electronic artist Erik Wøllo on a sonorous travelogue through daring, contrasting places and states of mind. Since the early eighties, Wøllo has created peerless electronic music, and Sojourns advances with nine captivating pieces. His 36th release is a sound-trip of bold and shimmering cycles of enduring, energizing music. 

Erik reflects: “A sense of being somewhere for a moment, a Sojourn. That is what I work to achieve in my music. I explore the idea of sound as a place in time: how each composition on an album is a place to be with its own story to tell. I ask myself how it can affect a listener’s perception. Creating an aesthetic that imbues an atmosphere which allows us the freedom to drift off into virtual mental wanderings. To stay there temporarily, and then move on to the next place, to the next piece of music. In a mind frame in which we experience psychological events, a continuous passage of existence. Where events pass from a state of future potential through the present to a state of past finality like a memory.” 

The first track “Memory Waves” is a dwelling slow motion EBow intro that moves into “Distant Thunder” with mounting percussion loops steadily energizing the listening space with guitar and synth strings keening through cavernous reverberation. The title track “Sojourn” is a hypnotic and drifting rhythmic track with shifting themes and intervening patterns. A calmer mood comes out in selections like “Gravity” and “Peace Bells,” again with a contemplative and authoritative soaring guitar EBow that leads the course ahead. The finale “Still Water” has a more introverted and fragile form that shines with a soft tremulous light. All 9 tracks possess a sense of drama, captivating as well as enigmatic, always Wøllo trademarks. 

Throughout, Wøllo maintains the feel of crossing a majestic landscape over the earth and beneath the stars. Images border on dreams within these seductive Sojourns. 

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Links to the playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud