reviews / 2018

HÅVARD VOLDEN - Space Happy

Name: HÅVARD VOLDEN – Space Happy
Item: Space Happy
Rating: 6.5
Author: Michele Palozzo

2018 (Sofa)

experimental

by Michele Palozzo

6.5

Forget the soft, mind-numbing views of galaxies in motion, the kaleidoscopic technicolor of Kubrick, and the entire science-fiction repertoire you keep in memory. Space will always be an inhospitable, unknowable reality that the human imagination has tried to sweeten and poeticize, perhaps to avoid reckoning with its profound and unsettling vastness.

That said, Håvard Volden's second solo album, "Space Happy", bears no resemblance to the wonder of a cosmic journey. It is closer to a trance that mimics the generative processes of the unknown ocean in which our small planet floats.

Mainly at ease with the roughness of the acoustic guitar, the Norwegian musician, already a companion of Jenny Hval on "Nude On Sand" and the mastermind behind the Moon Relay project (soon returning on Hubro), tackles the electronic manipulation of field recordings and sounds of electric origin. He creates obsessive rhythmic loops and explores hallucinatory effects to improvise in the most elusive and unpredictable way he can.

The second track immediately calls to mind the bold innovations of fellow countryman Stian Westerhus, an early nod to a neo-atavism capable of embodying the anguish of today's dark times. Among the artificial tremolo of "IV", it is Hval herself who gives voice to an inner solitude that echoes into the void. Brief interludes emphasize the essentially experimental nature of the project, with more than one nod to the historical avant-gardes of Stockhausen and Cage" ("V"), and almost venturing into today's industrial-noise abrasions ("VI").

The last extended track ("VIII") encapsulates the desolation implicit in the concept, far from cheerful, though perhaps "amused" in the solitary invention of its own eccentric celestial system. As confirmation, the three final fragments can be read as different hints of a stoic, anti-expressive hermeticism, culminating ultimately in a complete rejection of signifiers in fifty seconds of silence ("XI"). Perhaps, after all, the most mysterious and boundless "space" is that of the creative mind.

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08/10/2018

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Michele Palozzo, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition