"Omen"
“Based on a traditional Inuit drum-song melody. In 1995 Christian Vuust and I made a trip to visit Thule, Greenland, to record the Inuit people’s melodies as sung by different local so-called drum-singers, in this case Sofie Eipe, a lovely 60+ year old woman. We came home and made a CD, The Thule Spirit, with music based around these simple, yet very strong melodies. This song finally found its home on this record.
From the opening sections it jumps into an extended guitar solo with a long and slow build-up that eventually leads to set off the distorted guitar. The solo is followed by a passage for everything to settle down, featuring the strings in a style reminiscent of Arvo Pärt (Estonian composer), one of my favorites.
For the ending repeating sections the Greenlandic melody is accompanied by the massive sound of the string orchestra playing the chords. And when the climatic last chorus of the melody arrives, I think a certain quality from the mix and fusion of the old folk melody and its modern treatment can be found.
Again, there’s contrasting sections in between the melodies to give some perspective and context. The synth effect sounds are used to create atmosphere and feel, which is particularly prominent in the beginning of the guitar solo.
The idea of blending acoustic and electronic instruments together may not be thought of as being a very unusual one, but I don’t see too many successful examples around — which on the other hand could have to do with my personal taste.
Anyway, to me, it seems as if most synths and electronic instruments want to sound bad — in contrary to the acoustic. So, first you have to work hard to get away from that, and then simply just try to bring forth sounds well worth hearing. As much as the electronic instruments are inferior to the acoustic ones, they certainly can serve an useful purpose.
It actually can be a very rewarding course to enter upon, the thing of combining these two instrumental groups — they surely are capable of enhancing each other.
Kaspar (Vadsholt, the bassist) is on electric bass for the only time on the record, but as always, supporting the music.”
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OMEN
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