To get to Trollebotn in Norway, the geographical location at least, is relatively easy for the prepared outdoorsman, but for the mythical and legendary place of Trollebotn, the land where Trolls and Giants reputedly lived, is a much more perilous journey. So much so that the locals who lived around the area of Trollebotn (apparently keeping ancient traditions longer than other parts of Norway) have kept alive countless tails of myth and folklore. Not wanting this aged spoken word and folk tradition to be lost in the deep seas of modernity, Origami Republika, a global movement of artists, musicians, writers, film makers (et al) set about recording their own versions of these archaic and colorful tales (via their musical offshoot, Origami Arktika) with a sound as cosmopolitan as their members. With styles ranging from folk to industrial, from post rock to drone, Origami Arktika recorded Trollebotn in a remote island in the heart of Norway and the results are heard explicitly throughout.
Take ‘Anne Sit Hieme’ for instance, the first track on the album and a measure of just how talented a group Origami Arktika really is; blending psychedelic post rock sentiments and traditional Norwegian folk roots with ease.
‘Fjellmannjenta’, while steeped lyrically in Nordic folklore, produces a very global feel in its sound no doubt due to the use of a plethora of world music instruments at work in unison. Origami Arktika show off with precision the cosmopolitan and liberated make up of their group and their musical structures.
What helps to make this recording unique is, as previously mentioned, the fact that Origami Arktika recorded it on a remote island, Vesleoy to be precise, and not just on the island but outside, in the wilderness, allowing the field recordings of wind and most prominently with the track ‘Guro Heddelid’ the water surrounding the island, reputedly inhabited by an ancient sea serpent, The Seljordsorm, to feature. A combination of both geographical poignancy and diagetic sound that when mixed with the haunting and subtle folk sound of the band and the vocals of Rune Flaten, make for an as-damn-near-perfect-as-one-could-hope-for neo-folk composition.
‘Min Piepe’ too makes prominent use of the recorded ambience surrounding the island, with the faint yet hallmark beat of a tribal drum becoming ever more important in our marginal hearing until it at last dominates the audible space, mixing smoothly and successfully with Flaten’s calm and traditional vocal talents capturing the dark ages feel of the music with every note elegantly produced.
For a deeply powerful and spiritual track look to ‘Som Lindi Baerer Lauv’, with its gentle brush of the cymbal and slow and repetitive ancestral drum beat, the composition acts almost as a musical gateway, a fey gate crossing from the material aspect of Trollebotn to the mythical one sung about in the folklore adaptations heard here.
Those able to translate the lyrics within this release or are native Norwegian speakers will surely be able to appreciate this compilation of old Norse tales in a way I can only enviously dream of, but despair not fellow linguistic philistines as the free folk sounds here alone are enough to help you on your peaceful journey to Trollebotn even if the captain’s tales are incomprehensible; truly a brilliant piece of musical, cultural and anthropological history and one of Origami Arktika’s most unique releases.
