Danish, Oslo-based sax player Signe Emmeluth investigates the concept of Space with her new Spacemusic Ensemble. Emmeluth does not refer to space music or to the space of the universe, as the Norwegian outfits of Dr. Kay And His Interstellar Tone Scientists and Billy Meier do, but the senses of space and depth in and within music. She also wanted to explore how her compositional themes feed the improvised segments, extend and enhance each other, and setting her new music in perpetual motion and change in every performances.

Spacemusic Ensemble features some of the most expressive musicians of the Oslo scene – close partner, guitarist Karl Bjorå (who plays in Emmeluth’s Amoeba and in the the duo Owl with her), pianist Anja Lauvdal, tuba player Heida Karine Johannesdottir, drummer Andreas Winther and vocalist Rohey Taalah. All except Taalah add vintage synthesizers and no input mixers to their arsenal, deepening the alien sonic envelope. Emmeluth wrote the new music with these musicians in her mind. She wanted to see how this Ensemble would unfold the music, be challenged by it and have fun with it.

The new compositions of Emmeluth suggest an elusive spirit. The ensemble plays the music with great patience and discipline but the music sounds totally free and surrealist. The electro-acoustic envelope radiates cerebral severity but there are engaging bursts of playfulness and sheer fun, a mysterious atmosphere and surprising energetic grooves, Beyond all, there is an bold attempt to create a new cosmology of sounds and space, innocent with its psychedelic ideas of peace and love, stressed in the recitations of Taalah. But the experimental ideas off Emmeluth makes you want to listen to more creative experiments like this one.

Eyal Hareuveni

Signe Emmeluth (s, no input mixer), Rohey Taalah (v), Andreas Winther (dr, synth), Karl Bjorå (g, no input mixer), Heida Karine Johannesdottir (tuba, eff), Anja Lauvdal (p, synth)

Spacemusic Ensemble from Signe Emmeluth on Vimeo.