Glimmer
ECM Records (48 mins)
Hardanger fiddle player and violinist Nils Økland and harmonium player Sigbjørn Apeland have been making music together for 30 years, but Glimmer is only their second album of duets – and their first since 2011. It was worth the wait.
Økland and Apeland channel their homes of Nord-Rogaland and Sunnhordland in western Norway, using the traditional music of those regions as a basis for controlled, thoughtful improvisations, with occasional influence from medieval, baroque and atonal 20th century art music. The results are breathtaking. The amount of sound created from just two instruments is epic, but it never feels overwhelming. Instead, the tones echo as if from across the fjord, reflecting a natural, spacious beauty. The effect is calm and haunting, poignant and bittersweet, even a little unsettling, with its deep, heavy drones and subtle clashes of tuning between the Hardanger fiddle and harmonium.
Glimmer is a triumph of emotion and restraint, an album imbued with a trust and an understanding that can only come from three decades of collaboration between two of Norway’s most respected musicians.