Sigurd Hole Evokes a Tropical Ecosystem in an Equally Imperiled Scandinavian Ambience

During the lockdown, bassist Sigurd Hole took a deep dive into rainforest field recordings, as well as how sonics reflect the resilience of ecosystems. In his research, he discovered how indigenous populations around the world typically view themselves as an intrinsic part of their environments rather than a force to shape and bulldoze their surroundings to fit a profit-driven agenda. He brought these themes to life with an imaginative ensemble in a relatively rare 2020 public performance in an Oslo church early that winter. He also had the good sense to record the show, and has released it as an album, Roramia, streaming at Bandcamp.

For Hole, whose previous release was a mystically epic solo double disc, this is an especially lavish production. He takes the album title from a tabletop mountain on the northern Amazon, home to an increasingly threatened native population who have been devastated by disease. displacement and deforestation brought by invading mining companies. Playing along to recordings of tropical deep-forest sounds, his supporting cast includes Trygve Seim on sax, Frode Halti on accordion, Hakon Aase on violin, Helga Nyhr on hardanger fiddle and vocals, Tanja Orning on cello and Per Oddvar Johansen on percussion. Scores of other artists have done what you might call ambient chamber jazz improvisation, but Hole’s is especially dynamic and full of surprises.

The concert begins as wisps of harmonics mingle within a pastiche of jungle ambience: Hole transcribed some of his lines from red-billed toucan song. The suite is built around a series of Brazilian jungle creation myths, and the associated deities. Gently tremoloing phrases echo and repeat; desolate Nordic fiddle melodies make a surreal contrast, punctuated by a regal gong. As usual, Hole utilizes the entirety of his instrument’s sonic possibilities, from the highest of harmonics to looming percussion on the body.

Percussion and pizzicato strings simulate a rainforest backdrop as the accordion wafts warmly through a moon spirit depiction. Mystical, shamanic drums give way to similarly magical, melismatic microtonal sax and moody, modal massed orchestral riffage.

Calm circular motives that recall Terry Riley at his most Indian-influenced are a recurrent trope, sometimes in contrast with aching, acidic high strings. An elegantly syncopated forest dance takes on unexpected but striking Middle Eastern tinges. Suspense and spriteliness mingle in a twinkling vibraphone interlude that quickly dissolves into otherworldly shivers from the strings. Another brings to mind the Claudia Quintet, but with half the notes.

As the concert goes on, hypnotic lushness reaches orchestral majesty, circularity returns, Hole takes a fleetingly punchy solo, and the ensemble finally hit a lively, flamenco-inspired peak with the sax going full steam. It wouldn’t be fair to give away the ending: as an eco-disaster parable and sobering call to action, this has few equals in jazz.

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Low-Register Transcendence at Bassist Sigurd Hole’s Carnegie Hall Debut

In his Carnegie Hall debut on the third of the month, bassist Sigurd Hole played music to get absolutely lost in. From the most sepulchral, wispy high harmonics, to pitchblende lows, he used the entirety of the sonic spectrum, as is his style. Often he’d combine the two extremes at once, building keening, sometimes oscillating overtones while bowing steadily at the tailpiece. The effect was as hypnotic as it was intense. Drawing on material from his new double album Lys/Morke (Norwegian for “Light/Dark”), he transcended any concept of what solo bass can be.

Musicologists have long debated the influence of nature on traditions around the world. Hole may have recorded the album on a desolate island off the northern Norwegian coast, but his music had a windswept vastness long before he embarked on the project. There was a point midway during his first set where he built resonance to the point where his bass was literally humming with microtones, many of them no doubt beyond human hearing at both the low and the top end. In a more delicate interlude, he plucked out harmonics that evoked the ping of a West African mbira thumb piano.

Amother passage (Hole basically segued his way into everything) drew on the otherworldly oscillating folk singing known as yoiks, as did an understatedly joyous, circling dance theme. But it was his darkest, most nocturnal passages that resonated the most, a deep riverbed counterbalanced by the alternately busy and hazily lingering flickers at the surface.

David Rothenberg, who has visited that same island where Hole made the record, played in between sets, first alongside a recording of whale song, then solo on bass clarinet. At first the recorded whale seemed to be thrashing the busker, but then Rothenberg found a murky groove and hung with it throughout the mammal’s garrolous whistles and quasi-barks. As the multi-reedman explained, whale song is very poetically constructed, with A-sections, B-sections, C-sections and more.

Hole returned to join Rothenberg for a brief set of duos. It was here the two personalities contrasted the most, Rothenberg eventually switching to clarinet for some exuberant glissandoing as Hole held the center animatedly with his mutedly balletesque leaps and bounces.

A Darkly Picturesque Double Album and a Carnegie Hall Debut by Cutting-Edge Bassist Sigurd Hole

Sigurd Hole gets more sound out of his instrument than virtually any other bassist alive. He’s made a name for himself as a purveyor of brooding, envelopingly minimalist themes, but he also uses the entirety of what his instrument can produce. He has a picturesque, vastly dynamic new solo album, Lys/Morke, recorded outdoors on a desolate island off the coast of his native Norway. He’s making his Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Hall on Feb 3 at 8 PM, performing many of these pieces. Cover is $25; the record hasn’t hit his Bandcamp page yet.

The first disc begins with the epic Lys. Over sounds of wind and water, Hole employs his bow for harmonics from across the audible spectrum, steady, hypnotic microtonal arpeggios, shivery shards, steady, peacefully minimalist washes and cautious, low-register footfalls.

That template describes much of what Hole does throughout the rest of the record, with frequent, bracing close harmonies, percussive moments and a pensive sketch or two. There’s a breathtaking display of extended technique that would make Charles Mingus proud, where Hole plays what’s essentially a bagpipe dance using high harmonics.

A lively, hypnotically circling theme evokes West African mbira music. In one of the album’s lighter moments, a lumberjack meets considerable resistance in the forest, or so it would seem. The most amusing vignette sounds like a reel of tape winding. Behind Hole, there are moments where the waves or the wind seem to pick up, adding to the general sense of desolation.

That really comes to the forefront as the second record coalesces. Increasingly otherworldly, eerily reverberating, pulsing variations on a stygian drone lead to more discernible, suspenseful melody, beginning with an unexpectedly catchy, gloomy chromatic theme. Hole goes down to his tailpiece for keening, scraping, brushy textures. Hypnotic echoes give way to slowly shifting cloudbanks, low/high contrasts, and a dirge of sorts that morphs into what could be Philip Glass.

Increasingly agitated, sawing phrases grow calmer and more enveloping. The slowly crescendoing vastness of the disc’s title track leads to a spare, spacious conclusion. This isn’t just a showcase for Hole’s fellow bassists to admire: fans of metal, the dark side of psychedelia and jazz improvisation ought to check out these strange and unique creations.

An Impromptu String Jazz Summit at Shapeshifter Lab

Last night at Shapeshifter Lab was a transcontinental string jazz summit. Ironically, that wasn’t the plan. But immigration trumped violinist Hakon Aase’s chance to get into the country, so bassist Sigurd Hole enlisted a great counterpart, Mark Feldman, to step in with barely two weeks notice. The result was a clinic in just about all the tuneful possibilities a violin, bass and most of a drumkit can create when manned by three of the world’s great minds in creative music.

Hole began with a solo set, which quickly established two of the night’s sustaining tropes: catchy minimalism and vast, brooding soundscapes. Often, he’d use his pedal to loop a low drone and then play tense close harmonies against it, often rising to keening, high-sky ambience for stark contrast. Most of the time he played with a bow, although he fingerpicked his most minimalist, catchiest grooves. The most entertaining moment was when he tuned his E string down a full octave for maximum ominous resonance. Hole’s long, sustained raga-like phrasing quickly established an Indian influence; at other times, grey-sky Norwegian folk tunes and more than distant echoes of the Balkans filtered through his somber washes.

Feldman and drummer Jarle Vespestad then joined him for the second set, which was catchier yet no less dark and intense. Playing a kit with no cymbals other than a hi-hat, often building a resonant, boomy sway on a dumbek goblet drum, Vespestad alternated between steady, syncopated quasi-trip-hop and slowly undulating Middle Eastern-flavored dirges.

Considering that it would be a stretch to call any of this music midtempo, Feldman saved his most exhilarating cadenzas to cap off the end of a few long upward spirals. Otherwise, he stuck close to Hole’s moody, plaintive themes, often in tandem with the bass. Hole dug into the pocket and stayed there for the majority of the set, although the more nocturnal numbers – especially an allusively Arabic-tinged mini-epic named for a street in Jerusalem – featured the same shadowy orchestral sweep as the material in his first set. Everything was filtered through a glass, darkly: Hole’s compositions peered around corners toward Egypt, and Mumbai, and fullscale angst, which made the few moments when the band let the menace off its leash all the more chilling.