Nordic Folk Ambience Recorded at Emanuel Vigeland’s Mausoleum

Unni
Løvlid is back with a new recording. Vita is released by
Grappa Musikkforlag, and the recording was made by Helge Sten at the Emanuel Vigeland
mausoleum. Vita is an atmospheric release, based entirely on Unni
Løvlid’s voice, and her presence and intensity as a performer. The recording
venue is a room with fabulous acoustics, ambience and resonance. The material
consists of thirteen religious folk songs, each of which Unni has a particular
relationship to. Her great-grandfather Samuel Pederson Lødemel (1866-1959) wrote
in his day a tune and his own version of Niels O. Svee’s text Om Verdens
Skabelse og Menneskets Fald (”On the Creation of the World and the Fall of
Man”). This has been recorded under the title O at Skue (”Oh! To Behold”), the
opening track of the CD.The recording was made in what has been called one of Oslo’s best kept
secrets: Emanuel
Vigeland’s Mausoleum at Slemdal. Vigeland erected the building himself in
1926 intending it to be a museum for his paintings and sculptures, but
subsequently decided that it would make a suitable mausoleum. All the windows
were bricked up, and Vigeland’s ashes were placed in an urn above the door. The
dark room is covered with frescoes forming a single huge painting entitled VITA,
depicting dramatic scenes from human birth to death. In keeping with the Italian
tradition Emanuel Vigeland called his building ”Tomba Emmanuelle”.

“I have dreamed of singing in this building for many years,” says folk
singer Unni Løvlid to Ballade. And now it has finally happened. “I have
chosen music that needs time,” says Unni Løvlid, “this music requires
space and silence.”

Helge Sten has been instrumental in the development of the Norwegian noise scene
over the past 10-15 years. He was one of the first students at the Art Academy
in Trondheim to work with sound as his medium. Sten graduated from the
Academy in 1996, and under the pseudonym Deathprod he has perfected his
Audiovirus concept.