| Profile: Erik Wollo | |
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Composing music since the eighties, Erik Wollo has released several fine albums of melodic electronic music primarily in Europe. His works are overlooked gems of modern instrumental music. From his home in Norway, Wollo sends out missives of mood and ambience on albums like Images of Light, Silver Beach, Solstice and Traces; an electronic album of startling originality. Wollo says of Norway's very first electronic music release, "Traces is a very special album to me... I felt I really got into something new and I have explored these ideas on several albums since."
Erik Wollo's roots in progressive rock are clear as he uses them to articulate cinematic musical themes. While there is always a sense of warmth to his atmospheric pieces, Wollo's music resounds with the stark beauty of Norway's wintry landscapes, sweeping mountain ranges and vast coastal fjords. Through his subtle minimalist patterns and nebulous breaths of sound, one can easily imagine the composer staring through windows splayed with ice crystals as Arctic winds whisper across the snow fields and ethereal northern lights pulse steadily in the distance. |
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Wollo's musical experience covers a wide range of styles from rock and jazz to classical music. He creates music that is both lyrical and rhythmic, focusing on melody and structure. He has composed and performed music for films, theatre, ballets and exhibitions as well as composing for strings, woodwinds and larger orchestra. As a guitarist he has lead his own groups, playing at clubs, concert halls and festivals.
Best known for albums of electronic landscapes, Wollo actually generates most of his music using a guitar synthesizer. Commenting on his international image, Wollo says, "Generally, I do not consider myself solely as an electronic artist. I am primarily a guitarist, which I first picked up at age 11." Looking back, Wollo was one of the first musicians in Norway to utilize the then new synthesizer in his music and therefore has been closely associated with the technology ever since. |  | |
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On Guitar Nova, Wollo focused on his acoustic guitar work, multi-tracking guitars into elaborate designs of atmospheric, ringing string orchestras while retaining the ambience, structure and evocative power of his more lushly orchestrated electronic works. Although acoustic, the compositions and production style still suggest the same open spaces of his pure electronic works, but here the melodies are etched in crystalline cold air.
Wind Journey is a light filled and gently melodic journey through soundscapes of synthesizer sound and guitars both acoustic and electric. The guitars are an important ingredient to the music as they are Wollo's main instrumentation and therefore the backbone of his sound. Each piece on Wind Journey is a cinematic trip, often powered by insistent sequencer lines, elaborate electronic orchestrations and topped off with gloriously heroic electric guitar solos that sound like they swept in from the stars. For his 27 April 2002 performance at the The Gatherings in Philadelphia, Erik Wollo drew from his recent work to create a concert of luminous airy music. Defining the musician's purpose, Wollo offers, "Artists have to go their own way. Follow their heart. Get to know their inner voice and create something personal. This is the most important thing, I think. Also, the most difficult part." | ||
Review: Wind Journey (Spotted Peccary): by Erik Wollo
We first encountered his expansive six-string stylings with last year's Guitar Nova; now soar with Erik Wollo on an instrumental wind journey. Though always close at hand, the guitar is less in the forefront during this dreamier outing as the one-man band's other instrumental talents take flight. Brooding deep passages are traversed by the radiantly unfurling guitar strands of "Wind Journey". Quietly rippling electronics and slight percussion join dream lines' gusting string-like sweeps, all of which sometimes serves as a backdrop for fluid pluckings. A spacious void is soon filled with drifting tonal flows, persuasive rhythms and brightly ringing guitar strings in "Wind Journey 2" (5:37) More-ambient textures spread across sea, the opening piece to the "Seasons Suite" (tracks 9 to 18) wherein Wollo levitates over open land, through rain and frost to arrive at the amorphous drifts of "Winter Lake". Midway through this phase, twangy reverbs lead into "Huldra 2" where ponderous drumbeats meet with raspy flute flavors. Piano twinkles and shifting guitar essences add the "shine" to "Winter Shine" (1:17). Interlocking sequencer patterns and chimes mark the passage of time with their hypnotic convergence. Gauzey sheets of electric guitar ephemera fluctuate beautifully in aptly-named "Aurora Borealis". A gently flowing panorama for the ears, wind journey rises above new age mediocrity thanks to Erik Wollo's thoughtfully planned course. Favorable weather conditions (and several perfectly ambient interludes) make for a 70-minute, 8.4-rated flight of fancy through 23 (!) tracks. - David J Opdyke/AmbiEntrance 29 Sept 2001 | ||
Review: Guitar Nova (Spotted Peccary) by Erik Wollo
While "guitar" plus "nova" may imply a cosmic explosion of six-stringed pyrotechnics, Erik Wollo's guitar nova instead offers the pleasurably slow-burning radiance of nimble fingering and serene acoustic moods. Shifting away from Spotted Peccary's traditional focus on specifically North American sounds, these intricately layered Norwegian guitar melodies mark the first excursion on the label's new Wanderings offshoot. Short and sweet, "Blue Mountain" (2:12) rises on soft strands plucked with pensive resolution. Similarly low-though-spirited "Summer Tomorrow" dances between strummed phrases and adroitly picked stringwork. Sliding strands extend like a series of wavering "Rainbows" (5:43), accompanied by a lovely latticework of notes and percussive clunks. Basking in silvers and golds, "The Eagle" hovers in flight which seems to rise and fall over some verdant valley. Bass pulsations and a dreamy aura emerge from "Source" as do a pluck-y rhythm and elastic tonal bands. "Fantasia's" cross-threaded background patterns are overlain with chimingly fluid doublets and Spanish-flavored meanderings. With a lightness in its lilt, "Hjallepallo" struts and twirls over a persistently chugging strum-rhythm. Carefully placed pluckings part to reveal the subtly droning darkness which swelters beneath a "Secret Place". The unassuming acoustic beauty of Guitar Nova smolders with aromatic fragrances and illuminates 14 scenes of idyllic peacefulness. Erik Wollo's six-stringed magic lulls as well as excites, particularly if one isn't averse to such truly musical undertakings. An 8.4 for loveliness and warmth which can provide a perfect blanket against winter's chill. - David J Opdyke/AmbiEntrance 29 Nov 2000 | ||
Erik Wollo made his stateside concert debut in Philadelphia at St. Mary's church on 27 April 2002. Following his concert at The Gatherings Concert Series, Erik Wollo performed a new realization of ambient/spacemusic live in the studio on the 28 April 2002 broadcast of STAR'S END. The concert lasted about 90 minutes. An excerpt appears on the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD. .
Erik Wollo returned to Philadelphia on 27 October 2007 for another concert at The Gatherings, which was followed by an on-air in-studio performance on STAR'S END. | ||
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To mark 30 years of continuous broadcast of STAR'S END, WXPN is releasing the STAR'S END 30th Anniversary Anthology CD. This double CD contains over 120 minutes of live music from 12 renowned artists. The unique performances were culled from on-air in-studio radio concerts by some of our community's greatest talents. Included on the disc are previously unreleased live selections donated by: The Ministry of Inside Things, Orbital Decay, Ian Boddy, AirSculpture, Radio Massacre International, Robert Rich, Rudy Adrian, Jonn Serrie, Jeff Pearce, Saul Stokes and Steve Roach. STAR'S END 30th Anniversary CD Anthology Related Links:
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