It’s not often you read the phrase “ethereal Nordic folk duo” in a press release but when I clicked through to the preview I wasn’t disappointed as heard the hypnotic slow procession of previous single ‘Ra Rising Sun’, the track that opens Gabbarein’s self-titled debut album Gabbarein.
This is the kind of album that you come upon when you are out for a walk in a remote location as dawn breaks. You come across an ancient henge with mist pooling around the centuries olds stone and find Gabbarein welcoming the dawn with their music. Amazingly, given the surety of the sound, singer Cecilia Hafstad’s vocals are improvised in one take. She draws from Norse mythology as much as she does from parts of her own life and says,
“I’m telling a personal story in the moment, the lyrics were just emerging from my past. When I listened to the tracks two years after the sessions, I had forgotten I had sung about past relationships. There are some pieces about my two marriages, especially my first marriage when I was very young, all this unexpectedly just arose in the moment. I remember on a couple tracks I was crying deeply while singing. One was about a dear friend of mine, who died when I was 12, on another (‘Mamma’) I was channeling thoughts and memories of my mother. So, it became a very, very personal album for me, though I never had this in mind going into the project.”
It may not come as a surprising that the duo met at a Shamanic sound-healing retreat in Vermont (well, maybe the Vermont part) although the album was recorded in Lyngen, Norway where they were inspired by the arctic surroundings, the culture of the native Sámi people, and the unexpected appearance of a white deer, all of which became woven into the fabric of the album. Multi-instrumentalist Christopher Bono provides lush and haunting soundscapes that can create the impression of a wind-swept tundra, winter forests twinkling with ice crystals or mountain top vistas over unspoiled valleys below. The layered nature of the sound is always sympathetic to the vocals, often just wrapping tenderly around the tune and occasionally surging with intense energy that burns brightly around Hafstad.
Some tracks like ‘Kyss Meg’, ‘Sea Stille’ or ‘Yggdrasil’(the immense sacred tree in Norse mythology) which float on slowly shifting chord patterns of synth-strings and drones or ‘Eske’ and ‘Mamma’ which are more conventionally tuneful. ‘Bjorke vise’ feels like a traditional folk song, ‘Jeg Hoerer Deg’ is filled with mounting tension with tremulous vocals that build to an ecstatic crescendo and you also get ‘Cumash Canyon’ and ‘Gabbarein’ that could accompany ritual dancing round a fire.
Hafstad’s voice is breath-taking as it shines out from Christopher Bono’s elemental arrangements. This is meditative, hypnogogic music that seems to invoke and exult, transcending and channelling something outside this realm.
Gabbarein are: Cecilie Hafstad: Vocals, Percussion, Shruti Box, Crystal Bowls, Jaw Harp, Frame Drum, Christopher Bono: Synths, Electric Guitars, Acoustic Guitars, Mandolin, Violin, Clarinet, Flute, Drums, Programming, Bass, Lute, Vocals, Percussion with Karina Bono: Vocals on “Bjørke vise”.
Gabbarein socials: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | Threads | YouTube
Review by Paul F Cook
Keep up to date with all new content on Joyzine via our
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Mailing List