quête:nin

1973 was an amazing year for the pop/rock duo Hall & Oates as they ushered their superstardom further with the incredible second album masterpiece Abandoned Luncheonette.

Produced by the great Arif Mardin, this nine-song album fused with classic Philly soul, rock and acoustic pop anthems delivered in a big way for the history making duo. Including the huge hit single "She's Gone," as well as the celebrated title track, Abandoned Lunchonette was a watershed album which has rewarded them with non-stop success for the past four decades.

Abandoned Luncheonette is the most commercially successful of the duo's Atlantic Records period; the album reached No. 33 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart. Twenty-nine years after its release, the album was certified platinum (over one million copies sold) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

This top-notch Analogue Productions reissue is pressed at Quality Record Pressings, and housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

Andrea has his roots in the independent musical scene in the first decade of the 2000s. In addition to his compositional and live experience as the first Nadàr Solo drummer, he is one half of the Turin duo Anthony Laszlo with Anthony Sasso, ex guitarist and singer of Milena Lovesick. Andrea Laszlo De Simone made his debut in 2012 when he released his first homemade album, Ecce Homo. Recorded at home by makeshift means and accompanied by the following videos: Solo un uomo, 11:43, I nostri piccoli occhi, Perdutamente.

At the beginning of 2014, he met some experienced musicians from Turin’s underground scene that later, after a few months in a rehearsal room, became his band: Damir Nefat (guitar/backing vocals), Dani C (bass guitar/backing vocals), Filippo Cornaglia (drums/backing vocals), Zevi Bordovach (keyboards/backing vocals) and Anthony Sasso (keyboards/backing vocals/percussions).

Anticipated by the individual tracks Uomo Donna, Vieni a salvarmi and La guerra dei baci on June 9, 2017 - for 42Records - Uomo Donna came out. It’s Andrea Laszlo De Simone’s first real album, a well received work by both audience and critics. It also was pointed as one of the best albums of 2017 by several national music magazines.

Uomo Donna is a complex, articulate and vital album that lives in its own time - where past, present and future coexist. It’s a time in which a sonic world takes shape blending classic and modern, Italian songs with psychedelia, Battisti and Radiohead, Modugno and Verdena, the Beatles and Tame Impala, the magical flight of Claudio Rocchi and the earthly flight of IOSONOUNCANE.

The album was self-produced and then post-produced by Andrea in collaboration with Giuseppe Lo Bue, a sound engineer from Bologna. The recordings were made between October 2014 and the end of 2016 with experimental techniques straddling digital and analogic.

After playing in some important Italian festivals as Siren Festival and TOdays -- that earned him a special mention in the live scores by Rolling Stones -- on October 28, 2017 the first Uomo Donna album tour started in the clubs of the major Italian cities.

On November 30th 2017, Andrea Laszlo De Simone presented his video, Sogno l'amore, during the Torino Film Festival as a short film, shot in Sicily and directed by Francesca Noto and Andrea Laszlo De Simone.

On March 15th 2018 the music video of Gli uomini hanno fame was released, the most political song of the album, an overlook through ferocious human emotions, an eleven and fifty minutes trip within human nature portrayed even in its most ferocious instincts. The music video was directed by Andrea Laszlo De Simone and the mysterious duo Sans. The official cycle of Uomo Donna ends on 31 December 2018 with the music video of Sparite Tutti created by the creative collective Irene&Irene.

2019 was a year of new goals for Andrea, in fact, the album Uomo Donna leaves national borders and got a special mention on social media by the famous American band The Lumineers which included Andrea Laszlo De Simone and Uomo Donna among the most interesting discoveries of the international musical underground and inserts Solo un Uomo in the Spotify playlist “Inspirations”. A few days later, Solo un Uomo was broadcasted by KEXP Radio. On November 4th Andrea and his band were chosen to open for The Lumineers’ only Italian show at Alcatraz, in Milan.

On November 8th Andrea released a brand new work, digitally and on vinyl for 42Records, Immensità, a ‘suite’ of four singles: Immensità, Conchiglie, Mistero and La Nostra Fine. Turned into a medium-length film using Immensità as the soundtrack.

Immensità was presented with four special sold out concerts in Rome, Turin, Padua and Milan. For these shows Andrea Laszlo De Simone was accompanied on stage by a mixed orchestra composed of synths, electronics, choirs, strings and woodwinds. Classic and modern instruments that are intertwined in a nine elements formation: an immersive concert, a contemporary version of chamber music.

In March 2020 Immensità was released also in France, UK, Canada, Belgium and the United States with Ekleroshock/ Hamburger Records (Roster: Benjamin Clementine, Polo & Pan, Limousine and many others). The response of the transalpine press and media, sector and not, was unexpected: major French newspapers and magazines - from Le Monde to Liberation, Vanity Fair and Les Inrockuptibles - dedicated entire pages and rave reviews to Immensità and Andrea Laszlo De Simone. The track Immensità entered, after a few days, at the fourteenth rank of Spotify’s Top viral 50 playlist and broadcasted on France Inter and Radio Nova.

“Immensità” is a complex cross media work of music and images. A project divided into four chapters (the songs) for nine tracks (each chapter has a prologue or a conclusion). A true suite, using the classic term that best describes an instrumental composition in several stages, that can be enjoyed in its entirety only by listening to vinyl or digitally in the innovative single track format, without pauses: a single symphony of 25 minutes and 6 seconds.

In September 2020, Dal giorno in cui sei nato tu was released on all italian platforms, a song dedicated to Andrea’s children, a real love letter in the form of a small speech, where he tries to give them the three keys to approaching life: fantasy, music and irony. Martino, 8 years old, replies to his father’s love letter by making the video accompanying the song, created in Super 8. It's the story of the world through the eyes of the child. It is also an homage to the new little girl in family, Lucia.

Todos os Olhos is one of the most emblematic and essential records of the confrontational music of Brazil. By denouncing, criticizing, and mocking the trend of "heroes" who made "protest music" at the time, Tom Ze? signed his eremitic letter of exclusion but not without "contest the contestation". Excommunicated from the MPB and even from Tropica?lia, in Todos os Olhos Tom Ze? presented, with a lot of courage, an unusual way of fight Brazil's military dictatorship. All that would be later triggered in Tom Ze?'s career is here, always ready for a new rediscovery.

“Thou Shalt” is the second album by The Answer Lies In The Black Void. Serene, invoking imagery of darkness; sweeping soundscapes tear and twist at the emotions. The latest album by The Answer Lies In The Black Void is a work of magical beauty. The duo, a collaboration of Martina Horváth from avant-garde folk metal project Thy Catafalque and Jason Köhnen from Celestial Season, The Lovecraft Sextet, Bong-Ra, Mansur and The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, follows up on their 2021 debut “Forlorn”.

The prevalent element here is doom, but there is so much more buried deep within the dark vaults of this compelling record. The nine new tracks are deep, richly layered songs, with Horváth demonstrating her stunning shimmering vocals over the complex creativity of Köhnen, the multi-instrumentalist who takes responsibility for everything instrument-driven here. There are crushing riffs, echoing lead guitar work, melodic choruses and harrowing passages which send shivers down the spine, and all the time the atmosphere builds; The Answer Lies In The Black Void seeks to embrace beauty in darkness and fragility in heaviness.

True audiophile joy — now cut at 45 RPM 2LP for better tracking, exceptional bass!
Remastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original master tapes
Plated and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings!
Stoughton Printing gatefold tip-on heavyweight cardboard jacket


Praise for the 33 1/3 version of The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get:

"(Side one) ends with the appropriately titled 'Happy Ways,' a Latin-tinged guitar-fest with lovely chunky bass lines that sounds absolutely glorious on this Analogue Productions pressing. The zing of steel string guitar almost sounds dead on the CD and tired on my ancient vinyl pressing, so this is clearly not one of those remasters that's based on an umpteenth generation copy of the tapes. ... You owe it to yourself to hear this album — and it will not sound any better than this spectacular pressing." — Recording = 8/10; Music 10/10 — Jason Kenedy, Hi-Fi+, Issue 148

"An outstanding new 180gm LP reissue from Analogue Productions, with improved sound thanks to a sparkling new remaster by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, makes it clear that this 1973 release remains — with the possible exception of 1978's But Seriously, Folks . . . — the undisputed highlight of Walsh's solo career. ... Another week, another beautiful-sounding, wonderfully packaged reissue from Analogue Productions." Read the whole review here. — Robert Baird, May 2017

In between his stints with the James Gang and the Eagles, Joe Walsh tackled his second solo studio album The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get which became his most successful solo outing. The 1973 LP continued the heavy and light rock mix of tracks found on his previous release, Barnstorm.

Analogue Productions has done reissue justice to the album that AllMusic decries "features some of the most remembered Joe Walsh tracks, but it's not just these that make the album a success. Each of the nine tracks is a song to be proud of. This is a superb album by anyone's standards."

To obtain the best sound possible we turned to Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio to remaster this superb album from the original analogue tapes. Next we plated the lacquers and pressed LPs on 180-gram audiophile vinyl at the world's best LP maker, Quality Record Pressings. Top it all off with a deluxe Stoughton Printing gatefold tip-on jacket and you've got the makings for audiophile joy.

But would we stop there? Hardly. Now with our 45 RPM release, the best-sounding version of this rock music gem gives listeners an even richer sonic experience. The dead-quiet double-LP, with the music spread over four sides of vinyl, reduces distortion and high frequency loss as the wider-spaced grooves let your stereo cartridge track more accurately.

This amazingly eclectic rock album has Joe's smash "Rocky Mountain Way," his hit "Meadows," plus "Bookends," "Wolf; Dreams" and more! Walsh's ability to swing wildly from one end of the rock scale to the other is unparalleled and makes for an album to suit many tastes.

Kingston-upon-Hull outfit The Black Delta Movement's new ‘In Acetate’ EP is a companion piece to the band’s recently released ‘Recovery Effects’ album.

Serving up eight tracks of immersive, groove-heavy psych-rock, The Black Delta Movemen’s second album ‘Recovery Effects’ was released in April 2023 and is already on its second vinyl pressing. Nearly five years in the works, it found band leader Matt Burr recruiting Little Barrie’s Barrie Cadogan, Lewis Wharton and Tony Coote to play on the record and The Heliocentrics’ Malcolm Catto on production duties.

The incoming ‘In Acetate’ EP is made up of three previously-unreleased tracks from those sessions (‘(This Is) Slow House’, ‘The Landgrab’ and ‘303’) and two remixes courtesy of UNKLE and Ill Japonia – aka Taigen Kawabe of Bo Ningen, who TBDM did a short Dutch tour with earlier this year.

A band who have justifiably been championed across the world, Tokyo’s Melt-Banana have been responsible for some of the most complex punk rock ever made … that far outshines ninety-nine percent of most other bands out there. The band once described their live show as “Shooting machine gun and laser beam, chaos in order.” And I think that pretty much sums them up. — Olli Siebelt, BBC No wave without the self-conscious pretension, avant garde composition compressed into one-minute-or-less bursts, urgency, intricate destruction, pure glorious abandon. Melt-Banana play the same way that Repulsion, Naked City, The Ruins, or The Boredoms all make you want to scream and dance and kill your neighbors. This is not music that we are conditioned to accept. This is you delirious with joy scraping your five senses off the floor. —Matthew Moyer, Ink19 Melt-Banana are in a league of their own. There are other extreme hardcore bands out there who are experimental and unique but Melt-Banana are more than that. They area giants amongst infants. Masters amongst pupils. Kings amongst serfs. Nobody can do what they do and nobody can adequately use words to describe them. —Jeb, Crass Menagerie

Kata No Wadachi is the latest album by Banetoriko, the solo noise project of Tamaki Ueda. Her first release both on An’archives and on vinyl, it follows several albums for the Neurec imprint – 2017’s Beside the Sluice and 2022’s Yorioto Hogiokuri – and several other cassettes and CD-Rs. With Kata No Wadachi, the Banetoriko world, inspired by the Yokai (“strange apparitions” – supernatural figures, ghosts, spirits) of Japanese folklore, is at its most resonant yet.

Recorded across 2022 and 2023, the three tracks on Kata No Wadachi have Ueda performing in a particularly elevated manner. Her sound is highly tactile and grittily sensuous, the better to capture the ritualistic repetitions, and hypnotic methodologies, core to Banetoriko. The scrape and scratch of Ueda’s self-made metal instrument, the Banetek, gives these improvisations a unique throb, even as their mood, of introverted focus and elaboration of minutiae, gestures towards broader histories of noise and abstract art. Kata No Wadachi evokes, to some degree, the urban ritual noise of the likes of The New Blockaders, Organum, or Ferial Confine; elsewhere, the abraded, rough-housing textures bring to mind the eighties tape works of Hands To and John Hudak.

Ueda embraces the dream evocation that’s possible when loops of blurred texture collide with the gnaw and groan of energised metal, while mantric, dissociated vocals, and the oppressive weight of deep breath, gather around these compositions like a ghost’s shroud. While she’s been making noise for some time, since the nineties, Banetoriko was formalised as a project in 2011, while Ueda lived in Los Angeles. Relocating to Osaka in 2021, she’s carved out an utterly unique space for herself in Japanese noise, and her music contains an absolutely elemental vibration. Framed beautifully with poetic liner notes by Aurélien Rossanino, Kata No Wadachi is an oppressive, yet quixotically blissful trip.

ora’s most innovative modern exponent bathes in communion with a re-imagined classical guitar, unveiling a new and previously unsuspected musical universe. In a meeting between instruments, not traditions, these maestros emerge from quite different and distant musical worlds. Ballaké Sissoko’s kora tradition and lineage traverse the once powerful West African empire known as Kaabu. South African Derek Gripper’s roots are in European classical guitar but infused with a unique jeli music mastery that takes guitar’s modern history in a captivating new direction.

But we are not hearing these traditions in dialogue: these masters meet on the sonic groundings of the kora, instrument of the griots, resonant vessel of the sacred and profane, sound carrier of history and wisdom. Through two decades of commitment and study, it is to this terrain that Gripper brings his guitar to meet its multi-stringed cousin.

The two men do not share a spoken language, but if it is true that music speaks universally, then they were already involved in profound dialogue long before they met for the series of London concerts which yielded this recording session – a session which matches deep communion with sparkling improvisation, which pushes a living tradition into brand new sonic spaces, and opens a live and direct channel of communication between kora and guitar. In the complex web of theme and variations spun by Sissoko’s twenty-two strings and Gripper’s six, a new African string theory is elaborated.

“Musically we tested each other,” says Sissoko, explaining that the most magical aspect of their encounters are spontaneity. “We have the mastery of our instruments, the technique and a good ear. Derek is very curious, that’s very important.”

“He’s just such a good listener,” says Gripper about Sissoko. “It’s not what he plays, it’s how he plays it. He’s an amazing interpreter, the prime master of timbre.”

Recording by Taylor Pollock at Platoon Studios, London.
Mixed, edited and produced by Derek Gripper.
Mastered by Murray Anderson at Milestone Studios, Cape Town.
Produced for vinyl by Chris Albertyn and Matt Temple at Matsuli Music.
Mastered for vinyl and lacquers cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, London.
Vinyl pressed at Pallas GmbH, Germany.
Sleeve notes by Francis Gooding, French translation by Paulo Goncalves.
Cover design by Toby Attwell at Twoshoes, Cape Town.

Around this time, he watched singer Robert Soeterboek perform live with Bodine, his former early- eighties heavy metal band. "His vocals truly impressed me, a rarity!" Lucassen recalls. "He had the charisma and power of singers like David Coverdale and Robert Plant. Discovering that we really got along personally, we decided to collaborate on some songs, just for fun." "We started writing songs together and found a natural flow, leading to a wealth of ideas," remembers Soeterboek.

"Our friendship grew as we spent more time together, and I remember that there were lots of shenanigans and laughter." The album encapsulates a glorious treasure trove of 11 original songs with a loving 70s and 80s nod. It's a blistering romp through the good time rolling rocker of "Let It Ride", the Beatles- esque "Doctor Robert's Medicine Show," the bluesy groove of "Annie Moore," the chugging glam stomp of "High-Speed Chase" to the 80s metal of "Ice on Fire", whilst "The Preacher" would fit on a number of Arjen's back catalogue records. The bonus disc features all the demos and some more newly recorded tracks.

Popol Ace is a progressive rock band from Norway which had its heyday in the 1970s. The band formed in 1972 as Popol Vuh, but changed their name in 1975 to avoid the confusion with the German group of the same name, which practiced more experimental and cosmic music. Stolen From Time is an ambitious and varied album, which testifies to the richness of progressive rock of the time. The group mixes various influences, such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, or Supertramp. The nine tracks on the album are all musical nuggets, ranging from symphonic rock to folk via jazz- rock or hard- rock. The group demonstrates great instrumental and vocal mastery, with neat arrangements and catchy melodies. Singer Jahn Teigen stands out for his powerful and expressive voice, able to move from low register to high register with ease

"Negore" is the second album by the Kenya-based duo Odd Odokko. After their debut "Auma" saw percussionist Sven Kacirek work with pre-existing recordings of singer and instrument builder Olith Ratego, the two opted for a similar approach for the ten pieces to preserve the expressiveness of the latter"s performance. Further contributions by sound artist KMRU and Angel Bat Dawid on bass clarinet expand the duo"s sonic palette which draws on the dodo music of the Luo people and enriches it with percussive, melodic, and occasionally electronic means. The record"s title translates to "petroleum lamp," signifying the transition from day to night-when the time has come to dance. In this decidedly joyful spirit, "Negore" is dedicated to transitions and venturing into the future. Ratego"s interpretation of the folk tradition is expressly contemporary, while Kacirek uses a rich variety of avant-garde and advanced electronic music techniques to propel it even further.

The current lineup of New Haven's long running Mountain Movers (guitarist/vocalist Dan Greene, bassist Rick Omonte, guitarist Kr yssi Battalene, & drummer Ross Menze) have been playing together for over a decade now, making their recorded debut on a slew of singles released from 2011-2013, but it wasn't until 2015's "Death Magic" (released on New Haven label Safety Meeting) that the potential of that iteration of the group became clear; Mountain Movers are a force of nature. The camaraderie & sensitivity to each others playing has only grown over time, cr ystallizing on the group's trio of albums for Trouble In Mind; 2017's eponymous "Mountain Movers" served as a reintroduction of the group to a larger audience, while 2018's "Pink Skies" raged like a group confident in its strengths, and 2020's prescient "World What World" - written & recorded before the world shut down - slightly shifted focus away from the jams & back toward the weight of guitarist/songwriter Dan Greene's poetic tales of magical realism. The band's ninth album "Walking After Dark" finds a happy medium between both aspects of the band's strengths; Greene's lyrical compositions and the group's long-form improvised jams. To those that are tuned in, that feeling of communion is evident in the Movers' playing. The members swap & cycle effortlessly through instruments without missing a beat, utilizing the downtime of lockdown to write & record every jam in their practice space. Those piles of tapes would eventually get edited & sequenced into "Walking After Dark", a tour-de-force double-album that balances fried, stony brilliance with outré excursions of experimental serenity. Consider the opening track "Bodega On My Mind" that ambles in like a road-worn traveller, its lysergic folk strums peppered with acidic lead lines from Battalene's Telecaster, eventually giving way to "The Sun Shines On The Moon, where the group's sizzling guitars are buoyed by Omonte's pillowy bass & Menze's percussion. From there on out, tracks like "Factory Dream" give the listener a taste of The Movers' modus operandi here; a mixture of (more) traditional song craft interspersed between long-form, improvised pieces of modern psychedelia. The group shuffles through instruments; synths, drum machines, auto-harp, various forms of percussion (and whatever else was laying around) as well as the trad guitar/bass/drums configuration to craft a suite of songs that - while not necessarily similar in composition - feel unified in their overall sonic scope. Tracks like the 14-minute "Reclamation Yard", whose deep-space electronic pulse is juxtaposed against side C opener "See The City "s persistent acoustic strum that showcase similar ideas of the `spirituality ' of losing ones self in repetition, but executed differently. In many ways "Walking After Dark"s duality feels like a merger of "On The Beach"-era Neil Young & the collective freak-outs of Amon Düül, taking inspiration in the `incorporeality ' of free music and lacing it with Greene's hazy, haunting lyricism and is an exciting step forward for a band that's already a few steps ahead. "Walking After Dark" is released on black double-vinyl in a full color gatefold jacket & includes an insert with artwork & lyrics by member Dan Greene.

Svart Records are proud to release the long-awaited full length album "SÁLA" by Kati Rán in May 2024

If the most profound treasures are often the most deeply buried, the journey to uncover them is vital process of discovery. Five years after the 15-minute single “Blodbylgje” signaled the birth of a new, more primordial, and immersive vision after the dissolution of her band L.E.A.F., Nordic dark folk artist Kati Rán has expanded on its oceanic theme for her long-awaited full-length album, “SÁLA”. Embarking on a far-reaching musical and personal travelogue, it’s a reawakening of both the feminine narratives submerged and fragmented within Norse mythology, and the enduring, healing powers held within.

Named after the Old Norse word for ‘soul’ and ‘sea’, “SÁLA” is an act of ‘soul retrieval’, the shamanic art of trauma recovery, be it illness, death, heartbreak or loss, and the reintegration of a splintered self. Across its 13, wide-ranging, elegantly unfolding tracks, the album is an embodiment of different feminine voices and perspectives – from the Norse nine daughters of the sea, or ‘billow maidens’, through various historical and fictional figures to the late-night voices we hear in our most liminal states – all with tales to tell, riddles to solve, challenges to be accepted and guidance to offer. It’s a multiplicity that, like the ocean itself, belongs to a vast, restless dynamic: a matrix of mysteries, unfathomable depths and ever-shifting currents, accumulating into an elemental, regenerative source of power.

Recorded in a barn in Húsafell, Iceland – home to glacier ice caves and a rare lava stone marimba rediscovered for the track “Stone Pillars” – as well as Finland, Norway and at home in Kati’s native Netherlands, “SÁLA” is as much chronicle of Kati’s own perspective-shifting recording process as it as a pilgrimage through different viewpoints and internal states. That itinerate urge is also reflected in the use of different languages, ranging across Norwegian, Old Norse, Icelandic, and, for the first time, English, her combination of ancient texts, historical reimagining’s and unguarded personal reflection backed up by deep research into the most resonant recesses of Nordic lore.

Spun throughout every thread of “SÁLA” is a sense of communion - with the power of stories to offer moral guidance and the thrill of the unknown; with the element of water, recreated across the album both in field recordings and the agelessly organic nature of the music itself; with the archetypes whose qualities we are called upon to embody at our most critical moments; and with the internal hidden realms forever whispering at us from the far edges of our consciousness.

Appropriately, it’s a collaborative venture too. As well as working closely together with Finnish producer Jaani Peuhu, there are contributions from across the musical spectrum, including extreme metal vocalist extraordinaire Gaahl, the Icelandic female choir Umbra Ensemble, renowned Norwegian jazz musician Karl Seglem, Björk and Brian Eno contrabassist Borgar Magnason, members of pagan folk acts Völuspá, Gealdýr, Heilung and Theodor Bastard and even Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris on vocals.

For all the many sources “SÁLA” draws from, the result is a singular, intimately transformative rite of passage, and a retuning of the heart to the reverent continuity of the sacred. It will take you from the opening title track’s chest-pounding rhythmic pulse emerging from a traditional Norwegian bukkehorn (recorded by Karl Seglem), a galloping horse-rider and Kati’s glacial, velveteen chant, through “Kólga’s” recounting of female persecution through the ages borne on the most gossamer-light yet unbreakable of timbres and “Stone Pillar’s” gently percolating, deep wells of abandonment and incantations to recovery. “SÁLA” closes with the track “Sátta” - Old Norse for ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’ – ending the album as it began with the bukkehorn, as it weaves rich drones and experience-stamped poems and prayers, Kati’s vocals the most sensitively tuned of emotional barometers. An album made in dedication, and in thrall to, its own sense of destiny, “SÁLA” is, as all quests must ultimately be, a homecoming.

Album introduction written by Jonathan Selzer.

Svart Records are proud to release the long-awaited full length album "SÁLA" by Kati Rán in May 2024

If the most profound treasures are often the most deeply buried, the journey to uncover them is vital process of discovery. Five years after the 15-minute single “Blodbylgje” signaled the birth of a new, more primordial, and immersive vision after the dissolution of her band L.E.A.F., Nordic dark folk artist Kati Rán has expanded on its oceanic theme for her long-awaited full-length album, “SÁLA”. Embarking on a far-reaching musical and personal travelogue, it’s a reawakening of both the feminine narratives submerged and fragmented within Norse mythology, and the enduring, healing powers held within.

Named after the Old Norse word for ‘soul’ and ‘sea’, “SÁLA” is an act of ‘soul retrieval’, the shamanic art of trauma recovery, be it illness, death, heartbreak or loss, and the reintegration of a splintered self. Across its 13, wide-ranging, elegantly unfolding tracks, the album is an embodiment of different feminine voices and perspectives – from the Norse nine daughters of the sea, or ‘billow maidens’, through various historical and fictional figures to the late-night voices we hear in our most liminal states – all with tales to tell, riddles to solve, challenges to be accepted and guidance to offer. It’s a multiplicity that, like the ocean itself, belongs to a vast, restless dynamic: a matrix of mysteries, unfathomable depths and ever-shifting currents, accumulating into an elemental, regenerative source of power.

Recorded in a barn in Húsafell, Iceland – home to glacier ice caves and a rare lava stone marimba rediscovered for the track “Stone Pillars” – as well as Finland, Norway and at home in Kati’s native Netherlands, “SÁLA” is as much chronicle of Kati’s own perspective-shifting recording process as it as a pilgrimage through different viewpoints and internal states. That itinerate urge is also reflected in the use of different languages, ranging across Norwegian, Old Norse, Icelandic, and, for the first time, English, her combination of ancient texts, historical reimagining’s and unguarded personal reflection backed up by deep research into the most resonant recesses of Nordic lore.

Spun throughout every thread of “SÁLA” is a sense of communion - with the power of stories to offer moral guidance and the thrill of the unknown; with the element of water, recreated across the album both in field recordings and the agelessly organic nature of the music itself; with the archetypes whose qualities we are called upon to embody at our most critical moments; and with the internal hidden realms forever whispering at us from the far edges of our consciousness.

Appropriately, it’s a collaborative venture too. As well as working closely together with Finnish producer Jaani Peuhu, there are contributions from across the musical spectrum, including extreme metal vocalist extraordinaire Gaahl, the Icelandic female choir Umbra Ensemble, renowned Norwegian jazz musician Karl Seglem, Björk and Brian Eno contrabassist Borgar Magnason, members of pagan folk acts Völuspá, Gealdýr, Heilung and Theodor Bastard and even Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris on vocals.

For all the many sources “SÁLA” draws from, the result is a singular, intimately transformative rite of passage, and a retuning of the heart to the reverent continuity of the sacred. It will take you from the opening title track’s chest-pounding rhythmic pulse emerging from a traditional Norwegian bukkehorn (recorded by Karl Seglem), a galloping horse-rider and Kati’s glacial, velveteen chant, through “Kólga’s” recounting of female persecution through the ages borne on the most gossamer-light yet unbreakable of timbres and “Stone Pillar’s” gently percolating, deep wells of abandonment and incantations to recovery. “SÁLA” closes with the track “Sátta” - Old Norse for ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’ – ending the album as it began with the bukkehorn, as it weaves rich drones and experience-stamped poems and prayers, Kati’s vocals the most sensitively tuned of emotional barometers. An album made in dedication, and in thrall to, its own sense of destiny, “SÁLA” is, as all quests must ultimately be, a homecoming.

Album introduction written by Jonathan Selzer.