Vilde&Inga – Norwegian violinist Vilde Sandve Alnæs and double bass player Inga Margrethe Aas – write their first names names as if they are one, inseparable entity. When you listen to this duo sophomore album «Silfr», that follows the acclaimed «Makrofauna» (ECM, 2014), you realize that these bold free-improvisers have created an organic sonic entity of their own.It is often impossible to tell what Vilde Sandve Alnæs is doing from what Inga Margrethe Aas does.
Vilde&Inga began working together in 2010, often collaborating with other innovative improvisers as their mentor, vocal artist Sidsel Endresen, and percussionist Ingar Zach. Alnæs and Aas are working together also as educators and doing many workshops for children. «Silfr» was recorded at the Iladalen Kirke in Oslo on August 2015 by the like-minded comrade, sax player Espen Reinertsen, of the duo Streifenjunko.
«Silfr» highlights the duo profound, telepathic and pristine interplay. The ten pieces ask the listener to open up to a new listening experiences. Each of the short pieces offers a microclimate which eventually reveals even smaller, more nuanced but richer sonic pearls. There are no big dramas in these improvisations, but there is a strong, inner tension, quiet but a resolute intensity and a sense of shaping – intuitively – these series of improvisations into a whole, a loose compositional form that would reflect the uncompromising journey with and within sounds and timbres.
Quiet pieces like «Usynlig Flimmer», «Urtjern» and «Aurum» enjoy the church resonating acoustics and sound like secular variations of melancholic, contemplative hymns. Other pieces like «Røykkvarts» and «Fljóta» are totally experimental, totally focused in timbral search through extended bowing techniques, but with a playful sparks of irony and humor. There are also intricate rhythmical games on «Sprø Glimmer» and conspirational quarrels on «Karbontiden». The last, meditative «Skinnende Stein» is a beautiful, moving conclusion to Vilde&Inga impressive journey.
Eyal Hareuveni
Vilde Sandve Alnæs (vio), Inga Margrethe Aas (b)
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