This week on Ears Have Ears, our soundtrack comes from Moon Wheel: the independent project of Swedish artist and self-taught musician Olle Holmberg.
After a 7 year stint in Melbourne as part of experimental act Pissypaw, Holberg moved to Berlin and put out first release under this moniker – a 13 -minute drone split cassette with post-punk outfit Ill Winds (Noisekölln Tapes, 2012). Since then he has been become increasingly prolific in the Berlin music scene, constructing electronic sounds and shapeshifting compositions inspired by ‘nature, history and wandering’.
The piece – entitled Völuspá – is a musique concrète improvisation (or an 8-channel “meta DJ set”) about the creation of the world according to Scandinavian Asatro, performed on an Elektron Octatrack.
“Völuspá tells the story of the creation of the world and its coming end, related to the audience by a völva addressing Odin. It is one of the most important primary sources for the study of Norse mythology. The poem is preserved whole in the Codex Regius and Hauksbók manuscripts while parts of it are quoted in the Prose Edda. It consists of approximately 60 fornyrðislag stanzas.”
CREDITS:
Fornnordiska Klanger — The Sounds Of Prehistoric Scandinavia (1984)
Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson – Völuspá (1982)
Sigrún Haraldsdóttir — Eðalhagyrðingum Iðunnar (2005)
Roger Winfield — North Wind (1991)
Peter Zinovieff — Agnus dei (1966)
Peter Zinovieff — January tensions (1968)
Daphne Oram — Contrasts Essconic
Jay-Dea Lopez — Road trip: the Warrumbungles and hotel recordings (2015)
Abstraction — Field Recording, Vents and Vending Machines (2015)
Jesse Osborne-Lanthier — Abs.aif (2015)
Olle Holmberg — Sommar med mor vid en stor sjö i Närke (2014)
