Nordic Folk Ambience Recorded at Emanuel Vigeland’s Mausoleum

03/15/2005 09:18AM

Unni Løvlid is back with a new recording. Vita is released by Grappa Musikkforlag, and the recording was made by Helge Sten at the Emanuel Vigeland mausoleum. Vita is an atmospheric release, based entirely on Unni Løvlid’s voice, and her presence and intensity as a performer. The recording venue is a room with fabulous acoustics, ambience and resonance. The material consists of thirteen religious folk songs, each of which Unni has a particular relationship to. Her great-grandfather Samuel Pederson Lødemel (1866-1959) wrote in his day a tune and his own version of Niels O. Svee’s text Om Verdens Skabelse og Menneskets Fald (”On the Creation of the World and the Fall of Man”). This has been recorded under the title O at Skue (”Oh! To Behold”), the opening track of the CD.

The recording was made in what has been called one of Oslo’s best kept secrets: Emanuel Vigeland’s Mausoleum at Slemdal. Vigeland erected the building himself in 1926 intending it to be a museum for his paintings and sculptures, but subsequently decided that it would make a suitable mausoleum. All the windows were bricked up, and Vigeland’s ashes were placed in an urn above the door. The dark room is covered with frescoes forming a single huge painting entitled VITA, depicting dramatic scenes from human birth to death. In keeping with the Italian tradition Emanuel Vigeland called his building ”Tomba Emmanuelle”.

"I have dreamed of singing in this building for many years,” says folk singer Unni Løvlid to Ballade. And now it has finally happened. "I have chosen music that needs time,” says Unni Løvlid, "this music requires space and silence."

Helge Sten has been instrumental in the development of the Norwegian noise scene over the past 10-15 years. He was one of the first students at the Art Academy in Trondheim to work with sound as his medium. Sten graduated from the
Academy in 1996, and under the pseudonym Deathprod he has perfected his Audiovirus concept.

World Music Central
http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/20050315091825398