Ingvild Koksvik's New Single "Sommerflukt" on Spotify

Lars Jakob Rudjord came out with a single just a couple of months ago, so it makes sense that Ingvild Koksvik would follow up with one of her own. This one's called "Summerflokt," and it has more of a pop feel than her recent work, but plenty of her beautiful, original voice. You can here it on Spotify by clicking here.

Ingvild Koksvik's Songs From the Deepest Sea

There's a flurry of activity in Farsund, Norway these days. Just a couple of weeks after I blogged about Lark Jakob Rudjord's Pharos,a new single featured on all the streaming services, singer Ingvild Koksvik has released a new digital EP featuring three of her songs from her last album, sung this time in English. Lars confirmed this for me in an email exchange a couple of weeks ago, but I accidentally stumbled onto Songs From the Deepest Sea while browsing through Tidal this morning and reminded myself to check it out.

Og sangen kom der havet, Ingvild's last album, is a beautiful and hypnotic experience. One of the biggest reasons I fell in love with it was hearing her sing these Norwegian lyrics with such emotion and conviction that I felt like I didn't need an English translation. As I mentioned in my review for Positive Feedback Online, Ingvild supplied translation in the liner notes of the album, but I avoided them because I loved the hint of mystery. And now we have the English versions...will that mystery vanish?

Of course not! It's thrilling to hear her English vocals because they ground her voice--for an English-speaking fan like me, anyway. When I listen to Ingvild in her native Norwegian, she sounds like a beautiful, fleeting spirit. Hearing her sing "Song From the Deepest Sea," "Something Better" and "Mathilda's Lullaby" in English radically changes the mood of the music--a layer of meaning is both added and subtracted. It's almost like I'm hearing her voice for the first time, as if she's in the room with me. This might be a completely personal impression for one reason--Ingvild and Lars occasionally send me messages, and their English is perfect. (This is true, of course, of most Scandinavians.) And there's a slight disconnect between these perfectly normal conversations and the gorgeous, exotic Nordic music they make. Maybe I'm just a little starstruck by these two.

Now, Ingvild has supplied a bridge for me. The mystery has lessened, but the meaning is now more in focus. The music is still just as beautiful, but now I understand even more. Above all, I feel like I know her voice a little more because of this.

Ingvild and Lars pretty much take turns when it comes to releasing my favorite albums of the year, so hopefully these smaller projects are hinting at full albums to come. But now that I've flung myself into digital streaming, it's a genuine treat to be able to hear the in-between projects, the creativity and the direction these two are taking.

You can hear Songs from the Deepest Sea on Tidal and right here.

Lars Jakob Rudjord's Pharos, and a New Way to Listen to My Digital Files

A few days ago, Lars Jakob Rudjord announced that he had completed a new single, "Pharos," and that it was available for download on Spotify, Tidal, Amazon and other digital venues. Of course I took a listen on Tidal, my preferred way to stream, and of course I dug the track. "Pharos" sounds like it belongs on his last album, Indiepiano, which I chose as my favorite album of 2017. The new song is another delicate instrumental featuring Lars' unique keyboard work--he favors an organic and natural presentation that emphasizes the interaction between the musician and the instrument, the fingers and the keys, and the feet and the pedals. Lars' recordings are always so pristine and clear and musical, and the emotions are beyond vivid.

I shared the digital sample Lars provided on my Facebook page, and within a day or two it was liked by both Lars and his wife, the wonderful singer/composer Ingvild Koksvik. After that, Lars sent me an email and asked if I wanted to listen to the digital master. Within minutes I had two 44k 24-bit WAV files, one labelled the main master and the other one labelled a "supersafe" master that was designed for playback on mobile devices and laptops. These files offered such a deep view of the recording event, the sound of Lars' fingers brushing the keys, the slight creaking of the pedals, the air and the space and all the beauty. If you haven't taken my recommendation yet on Lars and Ingvild, this is an easy way to sample this gorgeous and beautifully recorded music from Norway. Just click on one of the links in the first paragraph.

The "Pharos" file gave me a chance to break in my new laptop-based listening system, which is composed of a new pair of Cardas Audio A8 Ear Speakers, an Audioquest Dragonfly Black USB amp/DAC, and Tidal. I've been experimenting with so many different ways to stream these days, but I think I prefer this one because the Audioquest and the Cardas are small enough to fit in tiny portable case you see in the photo--which can be stashed easily in my laptop bag--and the combination sounds fantastic. For instance, "Pharos" has a deep bass synthesizer note that appears midway into the song, and I had goosebumps the first time I heard it. The bass was tight, full and seemed to rumble all through my body.

This is a great way to listen to files, and I'm going to stick with this for a while--especially since I just received another hi-rez file featuring Portuguese fado music from Luis Filipe Fortunato, whose brilliant Live and Pure I reviewed for Positive Feedback last year.

In fact, I'm gonna take a listen right now!