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Ad undas - Sci-fi-Lieder fra Nordsjoen!
Through surfaces
Glimpse - vanished
String quartet in two movements

The works on this CD were written in the period 2008 – 2012. Already this feels remarkably long ago – at the time I was a student at the Norwegian Academy of Music, but because I realize that these works have been important to me as a composer I have neither been able – nor wanted – to throw them to the wind. I found many elements that pointed towards more recent works such as Étude ralentissante, also recorded on LAWO (LWC1115), by Stine Motland and the ensemble Aksiom. This is contemporary music scored for very traditional instrument combinations such as piano solo, duo for violin and piano, string quartet, and “Lieder” – the latter, however, with the prefix “sci-fi”.

Ad undas – Sci-fi Lieder from the North Sea! (2011). In 2010 impro-singer Stine Janvin Motland, pianist Sanae Yoshida and I began a collaboration which resulted in the song cycle Ad undas – Sci-fi-Lieder fra Nordsjoen!, ten songs with words taken from the Oyvind Rimbereid’s canonized extended poem Solaris korrigert (2004). Subsequently the idea arose to expand the cycle into a dramatic work, and in 2013 the opera Ad undas – Solaris korrigert premiered at the Norwegian Opera. “Ad undas” - literally meaning “to the waves”.

The year is 2480. The oil wells are empty; the oilrigs sank long ago. The earth is struggling – humankind is still in existence but the fear of extinction has led to the planning of a new and safer world beneath the sea. Solaris. Nature can be enjoyed via huge screens and there is no need to worry about the reality above. A robot operator lets us see into a future he believes we will be ashamed of. The language in the poem also seems to be from another world; a mix of English, Stavanger dialect, old Norse, German and SMS indicates how the world has been divided into new regions with names such as "organic 14.6”.

Neither the music of the opera nor the song cycle attempts to create a futuristic sci-fi sound scape. We are instead presented with something reminiscent of a 2480s nostalgia that might sound sweet and sentimental, pathetic and intense, and even childish. Yet still we are left with the impression of simple, sober music that is neither unpleasant nor particularly agreeable; neither "yor apocalyptsen terror-mare" nor "yor beauty dream". The violent, “manipulative” gestures wither away.