The sixth album of the Norwegian, Oslo-based experimental guitar duo kÖök of Stian Larsen and Jørn Erik Ahlsen is their first venture into a totally acoustic landscape, enhanced by the collaboration with fellow Norwegian photographer Simen Dieserud Thornquist. His images complement the music (that adorns the cover artwork) both inside and out and expand the album’s associative, sonic-cinematic universe. Thornquist’s photographs were taken on analog film along the coast of Larvik.
Let Yourself Evaporate takes kÖök to its very beginning as a musical unit, playing minimalist, free improvised music on two acoustic guitars, with no effects, loops, or electronics, but with hard-earned experience. All the sounds were made in an old-fashioned manner by playing the same sound over and over or by employing extended techniques, bows, preparations and objects like kitchen utensils.
The thirteen short and ascetic pieces distill kÖök’s fearless and ever-searching aesthetics, dynamics and expressions to its naked and most intimate basics. These gentle but left-off-center, spontaneous and raw acoustic guitar improvisations correspond beautifully with Thornquist’s naked and silent, black-and-white images of the coastline of Larvik.
Eyal Hareuveni
Jørn Erik Ahlsen (acoustic guitar); Stian Larsen (acoustic guitar)
