OJERUM - Nattesne

Following the artistic path of musician and collage artist/painter Paw Grabowski isn't easy, given his prolific output and his constant stream of visionary collages, always balanced between dream and expressionism, with his faces dissolving into landscapes, the minds opening up into the sky, the silent figures torn apart and reassembled, or classical art blurring into the contemporary. He's already released as many as four albums in 2019, each with covers of deep artistic significance. But the return to the prestigious French label Eilean – after the gem "Væv" (2016) – could only mean, for the Danish artist, a step beyond his own limits. The new cover might well represent a summa of his collages, one that, for fans of kraut and beyond, inevitably recalls the masterpiece by Popol Vuh, "Hosianna Mantra", so lofty in its achievement and so noble in its intent that it remains essentially a peak with no true successors.

A woman with the likeness of a medieval madonna against a grey background, a blue woodland landscape with a full moon set in her chest, dressed in a collage of flowers, her gaze cast sadly downward, her face covered with a veil reminiscent of a niqab, an element that creates an ambiguity — jarring in our times — between Christianity and the Muslim faith. Is the woman depicted a Christian madonna, or perhaps the image of a young migrant who has landed on our shores? If the cover stuns us with its beauty and recalls the Popol Vuh masterpiece, the right question is whether "Nattesne" can be considered the new "Hosianna Mantra". Probably not, but the hints of those coexisting worlds (East and West), the angelic female voices, the light piano notes, can't help but recall that unmatched masterpiece by Fricke.

Among the twelve untitled tracks, the fifth ("V") certainly stands out, with Siri Anna Flensburg's flawless voice and an atmosphere closely recalling the "Kyrie", with sparse piano notes and ethereal synths in the background. There's a religiosity in Ojerum's music, a religion without walls or borders, entirely human, indifferent to skin color or place of birth; the melancholy or the search for peace it conveys can be grasped by anyone, regardless of class or nationality, as long as they are still human. Grabowski at times draws close to the modern classical of Max Richter, as in the estranging strings of "VII" or the stretched-out loops of "XI". The artist seems to use notes in the same way and to the same end with which he creates images through his collages; the layering of piano, synth, strings, guitar and pre-recorded sounds creates unreal worlds that convey different sensations to the listener, as in the collage that is "XIV".

Essentially split in two, with dilated acoustic moments (the odd-numbered tracks) and others built on plucked-string notes (the even-numbered ones), "Nattesne" strikes an enviable balance between the ancient and the modern, crafting a contemporary religiosity through electronic instruments. Among the more purely ambient tracks, "III" stands out, absolutely Eno-esque, in the noblest and most inspired sense of the term, as is "IX", suspended between unease and serenity.
Among Ojerum's many works, "Nattesne" is by far his most complex and ambitious to date, a successful collection of ideas that could breathe new life into ambient music, especially if taken as a starting point from the track "V", one of the most evocative things that experimental electronic music can offer us today. Certainly, a formidable launching point for Grabowski's career.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

01/04/2019