Kristin Sevaldsen (Norway) – 5pm (sample track from the album The Sonic Experience – Iceland)

Here is an unusual one. I’ve encountered numerous people who make music by way of field recordings but I’ve never come across anything quite like this.

‘The Sonic Experience – Iceland’ is Volume #2 in Kristin Sevaldsen‘s forthcoming album trilogy based on field recordings from various locations, situations, and countries in the Arctic. (Technically, Iceland isn’t in the Arctic apart from the island of Grimsey, but we’ll overlook that minor detail and move swiftly on…)

She is a Norwegian saxophonist, composer, and music producer with a diverse musical background. The idea behind ‘The Sonic Experience’ concept is to create sonic environments that retell her experiences from nature and society.

Those field recordings are reproduced in an authentic and/or processed form in combination with saxophone playing or vocals. In May 2022, she travelled to Iceland to start collecting field recordings for the next album, later returning for an artist residency to immerse herself in Icelandic society by living there while working on the music.

‘5pm’ is the first track on the album and I guess it refers to the downing of tools at the end of the working day just as a later track, ‘Bus drivers wait’ appears to chronicle chit chat at a bus stop or on one in heavy traffic.

It really is experimental music at its best and its worst depending on your point of view, and I’ll give Kristin the benefit of any doubt. She intersperses the sonic moment with laid back sax passages that stand in counterpoint to the natural sounds, which largely, although not always is frenetic; a howling wind, driving rain. Very Iceland.

The piece starts with that little tune that church clocks sometimes play before they start chiming the hour, and end with it striking out five.

I suppose the idea is to catch a moment in time sonically, for posterity. No moment lasts long and it quickly becomes history.

As I always say with work that it is as experimental as this you will make of it what you will. For my part I reckon Kristin probably achieved her goal with ‘5pm’ although I can only surmise what that goal actually was!

Find her on:

Website: www.kristinsevaldsen.com