Or Gare is an evocative cycle of funeral-processional music from Ryfylke, located in south eastern Norway, known for its dramatic landscapes and deep fjords, dating from the 1940s to the 1980s. Stavanger-born, Berlin-based vocal artist and electronics player Stine Janvin and synth and tapes player Morten Joh (aka drummer and producer Morten J. Olsen of MoHa!) excavated this haunting, near-forgotten tradition and arranged the ancient songs into an atmospheric, ghost-lit contemporary form.
The ancient tradition is rooted in the bygone custom of «Liksong» (literally «corpse song») that was once sung by small groups of singers who guided rural funeral processions. The updated versions of nine songs from that tradition employ their unbearably slow intervallic structures, but reanimate this traditional, ceremonial practice as a kind of effects-laden, ancient electronic microtonal devotional music. The album was recorded at Stille Studio / Consulatet in Stavanger during 2024 and 2025.
Janvin’s rich vocal delivery, multiplated, manipulated, and processed, sounds as if she were summoning choirs of mysterious, expressive ghosts, while Joh’s minimalist repetitive synths and sonic treatments intensify the otherworldly, enigmatic, and ceremonial atmosphere, invoking a resurrected, forgotten liturgy for a dimly humming chapel of circuits. Janvin and Joh composed the electronic, Tangerine Dream-tinged «Processing grief – Transcendens» (and thank fifteen «members of the choir» who sang in its introduction, including Thomas Dybdahl). This haunting cycle ends with an uplifting, ritualistic version of J.S. Bach’s choral «Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott, BWV 721», as if Janvin and Joh wanted to release all past ghosts.
Eyal Hareuveni
Stine Janvin (vocals, Boss DD500, Antares Autotune, Arturia Vocoder V), Morten Joh (Korg Polysix, Sequential Take 5, SuperCollider, retuned vibraphone, tape delay), Lucy Railton (cello), Jules Reidy (guitar)
