«Grey Sea Over A Cold Sky» is a split cassette, featuring two electro-acoustic groups, with both acoustic and electronic instrumentation, and connected by the friendship of Norwegian Jenny Berger Myhre and British John Harries.
Wendra Hill For – named after seminal jazz pianist Andrew Hill – explores close collaboration and communication in a small group setting, in conjunction with compositionally integral digital editing. This improvising collective was formed in 2014 by guitarist Jo David Meyer Lysne and cellist Joel Ring, later joined by visual-sound artist-composer Jenny Berger Myhre and multi-instrumentalist Tobias Pfeil, adding flutist Henriette Eilertsen on two tracks. The group recorded eight tracks in Oslo in December 2017.
Wendra Hill For arranges and processes its chamber, acoustic interplay blended with a subtle layer of electronics and assorted field recordings and yoga-sessions on vinyl and cassette-tapes samples to a micro level in post production. The atmospheric, cinematic envelope on pieces like «Okroppslig» highlights this group search for its own sound – fragile, suggestive and detailed and its unique textures – mysterious, tensed and often melancholic and disturbing, as you you can hear the cutting, glitching and digital noises that play a significant role of the aesthetics of Wndra Hill For.
The London-based John Harries is an improvising drummer, electronics player and a founder of the artists’ collective, live performances and independent label The Lumen Lake. His side of the cassette begins «Grey Sea Over A Cold Sky» is a semi-improvised piece for eight or more cymbal players and high-pitched instruments, based on a pictorial score and some simple instructions. This ambitious, 16-minutes work creates endless and untimely motion of waves of delicate and meditative resonating tones and overtones. It reflects in its own way a sonic landscape of grey sea and very cold sky, and brings to mind the works of Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and his Gong Orchestra. The second, shorter and more playful piece «‘Tea, Coffee, Pepper» was made at Harries home on his own, with soprano sax overdubbed by his dad (the other John Harries) later on, and radiates a brighter spirit.
Eyal Hareuveni
Wendra Hill For: Jenny Berger Myhre (cl, cassette tapes, ac. laptop); Joel Ring (c, b, eff), Jo David Meyer Lysne (g, prep g, bells, cassette tapes, eff), Tobias Pfeil (g, s, zither), Henriette Eilertsen (fl). Grey Sea Over a Cold Sky: John Harries. Performed by Rosie Bergonzi, Regan Bowering, Heather Britton, Ed Burton, Luke Cartledge, Jamie Coe, J V Harries, J R V Harries, Jon Klaemint Hofgaard, Naomi Jackson, Chloe Owen, Carlos PereaMilla, Catriona Wilson and Ruthie Woodward.
