Another of my exciting recent Faroese discoveries, while preparing for the recent World New Music Days, is The Distance Between Us, a collaboration between composer Tróndur Bogason and the Faroes’ principal new music ensemble, Aldubáran (who were prominent during WNMD). In many respects the album’s title, and accompanying artwork, tell you everything you need to know about the music, which is rooted in attitudes of separation and disconnect.
The consistency of these attitudes throughout the album almost gives the impression that its five sections are all part of a large-scale attempt at some kind of relationship. Yet the word “attempt” implies both an intention and a desired outcome, and the more time i’ve spent with The Distance Between Us the more dubious that seems, since the reality is seriously and consistently tense, fuelled by a volatile mix of disinterest and earnestness. As such, perhaps the title isn’t hinting at anything hopeful, but simply stating a cold, hard fact.
That being said, the disjunct reality isn’t obvious through the opening ‘Prælog’. Indeed, the music emerges from octave unison notes, away from which it slides, and we discern fragments of melody, remote impacts, faint strains of something nascent, all at something of a distance. These are all held in a semi-stasis, seemingly stuck in place, and subsequent surges (which have the warmth of a fresh bruise) don’t exactly break the deadlock. On the contrary, this tutti roiling just makes everything hard to discern, becoming more about the churning totality than any details within.
It’s a fundamental rift that lies at the heart of all that follows. The subsequent title track is a lengthy essay in disconnection. We’re first presented with a collection of sharp edges: alarm-like sounds, heavy grinding lower strings, deep noise, far-off but insistent piano notes. It feels like something of a continuation of the ‘Prælog’, still in a process of actualising, warming up and finding its form. After a few minutes the counterpoint is introduced, the beginnings of a string melody, and we’re instantly caught in the middle of the tension arising from these two disjunct entities. The hard edges seem to have the upper hand, unleashing violent outbursts initiated by the piano, obliterating pretty much everything. Yet as the outbursts continue we become increasingly aware of tangible ideas in their midst. It would be simplistic to regard this as some kind of melodic triumph due to mere persistence, yet it’s nonetheless surprising and impressive to hear melody doggedly continuing to the end, even if, by the time of the track’s much darker final episode, it’s become bare and weak. All the same, the distance is no less than before; if anything the two sonic behaviours are as separate and polarised as they could possibly be.
In light of this, it’s interesting what unfolds in ‘Úr mjørkanum’ [out of the fog]. Halting drawn-out notes slowly – and with apparent difficulty – form a loose group texture, in the process starting to find their shape and harmonic identity. One might imagine this is Bogason focusing attention on the previous melodic impulse, allowing it to speak freely away from the aggressive chaos it encountered before. However, if so, then even here there are signs of internal friction: is the prominent bass clarinet actually connected to the nearby strings and other instruments, or are they acting in parallel? Either way, what transpires in the closing couple of minutes can be heard as an uncertain kind of unity, the players loosely held together and potentially sharing the start of a communal attitude, if not quite a sense of direction.
Bogason switches attention back to the volatile behaviour in the appropriately-named ‘Crash’, picking up where the title track left off and ramping up the distance between the two sides. Lyricism makes its presence felt here via the brass (primarily a trumpet with an echoing horn), a thread that overlaps more and more the angry violence hurled in its direction. There’s a greater sense here of the importance of that lyrical persistence heard earlier, though now in a much more combative context, where the turbulence just seems determined to drown it out. There’s an implication that the lyricism has the capacity to prevail, simply because the bursts of impactful gestures thrown outwards seem to quickly squander their energy, though after five minutes, both are still going strong.
The closing track, ’10th Sacrale’ is something of a return to the soundworld of ‘Úr mjørkanum’, inasmuch as the focus is returned to primarily lyrical ideas. Certainly, the violent fire has evidently finally blown itself out, but all that remains now are vestiges, heard in distant, reverberant traces of music sounding as plunky staccatos, fragments of melody, oblique organ chords and strange hovering triads low in the mix. In short, another collection of ideas and behaviours that, though gentle, sound merely adjacent, hardly in sympathy. All of which sounds about as far from a resolution as possible, a breakdown of certainty resulting in vague, directionless remnants. What happens in the closing two minutes is nicely ambiguous. First the piano, then the organ, strike up with parallel ideas, yet while nothing at first seems interested in connecting with either of them, eventually the instruments align themselves with the organ’s harmony. They resolve into something like a slow, steady chorale, with even the piano’s rather self-centred flourishes becoming, at the last possible moment, a complementary embellishment. In ‘Úr mjørkanum’ i found myself wondering whether what i called the “uncertain kind of unity” at the end is something i’m projecting onto the music, and while it seems more definite in the ’10th Sacrale’, there’s something dream-like about this conclusion that makes me wonder whether it’s a mere apparition of resolution, rather than being real.
The interlocking processes of narrative and continuity playing out throughout The Distance Between Us are fascinating and compelling, all the more so as Bogason doesn’t seek to present easy, formulaic conventions of opposition, tension and resolution. The only thing that’s clear is the omnipresent distance; everything else is much more uncertain.
Released last year, The Distance Between Us is available on vinyl, direct from Tutl, and in digital formats.
