By The Waterhole is the solo project of German-Norwegian, Bergen-based vocalist-composer-sound artist-writer Eva Pfitzenmaier, who often accompanies herself with a processed keyboard, a loop station, effect pedals and field recordings. Pfitzenmaier is joined on her third album, the double album three, by like-minded musical adventurer and husband Stephan Meidell on modular synth (who is also a guitarist in Erlend Apneseth Trio and Strings & Timpani). All music and texts were written by Pfitzenmaier (except the traditional Afro-American blues song «boll weevil holler») and recorded at Broen Studio in Bergen in 2021 and at Norsk Riksstudio in Bergen in 2023. The album is released on International Women’s Day, with a printed book with texts and drawings of Pfitzenmaier.
three was conceived just after Pfitzenmaier gave birth to her first child in 2016 and offers a cinematic musical journey through minimalist, otherworldly pulses, dance-like and delicate ambient electronic soundscapes with spoken word art, sometimes inspired by folk music, where phonetic poetry tickles both your ears and your fantasy. The creative process of three began with a two-day improvisation session with the premise of no limits, no rules, no expectations. These improvisations became the basis for the album that focuses on short moments of instability and vulnerability that reflect the human condition, searingly timely and simultaneously timeless.
This album suggests the most intimate, poetic and tangible reflections, observations and meditations, mostly read and sung in English but with one song in German, on family, motherhood, and a loving relationship with a newborn and a partner with the sober realization of the transient nature of all things. Pfitzenmaier’s electronics and field recordings with Meidell’s minimalist soundscapes with the modular synth allow more space for these reflections, observations and meditations to blossom and linger on.
Eyal Hareuveni
Eva Pfitzenmaier (voice, keyboard, electronics, recorders, percussion, field recordings), Stephan Meidell (modular synthesizer)
