It Was Her Idea is a new Norwegian quartet of South Africa-born vocal artist and actor Juliana Venter (of Paal Nilssen-Love Circus), Swedish, Trondheim-based pianist Oscar Grönberg, Norwegian double bass player Ole Morten Vågan, and Nilssen-Love. The debut album of this quartet highlights the expressive vocal qualities of Venter, often when she uses her voice as another acoustic instrument in a way that has not been touched upon in the highly rhythmic Circus. The album was recorded at Athletic Sound in Halden in May 2025.
The four musicians started playing together in 2022, with all of them bringing in compositions, and through the juxtaposition of these four strong-minded voices, something new was born, something more than a one-off meeting. The mostly acoustic music serves Verter’s visceral, theatrical, and sometimes even eccentric vocal delivery, and her multifaceted interests in free-improvised music, classical, operatic, and extended vocal techniques, contemporary music, noise, jazz, free jazz, and folk music expressions from Norway. This quartet also offers an opportunity for Nilssen-Love to collaborate with the Vågan and Grönberg in an intimate, acoustic setting that calls for subtle timbral explorations.
The album centerpiece, «Daughter of War», is an adaptation of a poem by Afgahn, Norway-based poetess and scholar Khālidah Furūgh, one of Afghanistan’s leading female poets, highlighting themes of conflict, resilience, and hope. Verter’s reserved yet powerful vocal delivery captures a whole spectrum of emotions, carefully embraced by Grönberg, Vågan, and Nilssen-Love, who intensify the dramatic emotional turmoil and emphasize how sadly this poem is always relevant. The last, minimalist and sparse piece, «Little Cage», sounds like an homage to the abstract chance music works of John Cage.
It Was Her Idea feels and sounds as if it just began to explore its bag of tricks.
Eyal Hareuveni
Juliana Venter (vocals), Oscar Grönberg (piano), Ole Morten Vågan (double bass), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums, percussion, Paiste gongs)
