«Unexpected Isolation» was created during Covid-19 quarantine lockdown, after Slovak guitarist and Norwegian trumpet Arve Henriksen had to cancel their live performances. Kollar and Henriksen have worked together before («Illusion of a Separate World and Sculpting in Time», Hevhetia, 2018, and 2019) and decided to use the isolation time to music that would capture the mood and atmosphere of this strange time. Both added electronics. Kollar played with bows on his guitar and Henriksen added a synthesizer to his instruments arsenal. They used sampled voices, some captured by Pat Mastelotto. Henriksen’s comrade in Supersilent, Helge Sten, did the mastering work.

The 18 brief pieces sound like a continuation of Kollar and Henriksen’s work in «Illusion of a Separate World» but capture distinct time capsules of this time and radiate strongly the sense of loneliness and melancholy of the Covid-19 lockdown with dissonant, abstract and noisy soundscapes. These nuanced soundscapes are cinematic in their nature and transmit immediately the sense of existential confusion and reflection.

The unsettling «Covidication», the apocalyptic «In the Time of Plague» and the sci-fi cinematic «Bacteria vs Virus» articulate best the anxiety and stress of this troubling time while the melancholic «Keep Distancing» captures faithfully the feelings of forced loneliness. Kollar and Henriksen offer their moving yearning for an open, safer world on the lyrical «Catalunya». «Abbastanza Strada» and the painful, poetic «Without Saying Goodbye». Their poetic, unworldly soundscape «Lonely Man» nods gently to Ornette Coleman’s classic «Lonely Woman».

This arresting sonic meditation ends with hesitant rays of home, the openly emotional and lyrical «Life vs Death» and the touching, beautiful «In the Near Future».

Eyal Hareuveni  

David Kollar (g, b, elec), Arve Henriksen (tp, v, synth, elec)