Ulver - Riverhead LP
$35.00
Ulver - Riverhead LP
$35.00
For a band so notoriously difficult to pigeonhole, it should come as no surprise that Ulver should follow up January’s expansive and proggy ATGCLVLSSCAP LP with something from left field, in this case a soundtrack album named for the film Riverhead, about family feuds in Newfoundland.
This is not the first feature the band have soundtracked, but it may well prove their best – as sparse and minimal as ever, but with a gentle drive to its arc that will carry along the listener. Crucially, there are repeated themes; a snatch of piano notes, a bowed drone note, a gentle patter of cymbals, that bind together the material within its narrative.
As one might expect, their electronic and ambient influences shine strongly, and lend themselves well to the cinematic atmosphere, but perhaps less obviously where there are organic instruments there remains a strong folk influence. The director Justin Oakey has in fact specifically alluded to this when describing the soundtrack, saying that it employs Celtic and Nordic folk influences that tie together the film’s setting – Newfoundland – and the band’s native Norway. Tracks like Stalking blend an almost intuitive sense of musical harmony and rhythm into something both novel and familiar, with percussive and electronic elements somehow coming together to evoke the mood and essence of folk music without its characteristic instrumentation. - Louder Sound
Pressing Information
White Edition. Limited to 200. House of Mythology.
