Ola Kvernberg - Steamdome (2017) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Three years after releasing the masterpiece The Mechanical Fair, Ola Kvernberg returns with a new magnificent, imaginative, rhythmic deluge of an album: Steamdome. The title of Kvernberg’s latest project was not chosen at random. Steamdome presents thoroughly percussive music. It lunges brutally ahead like a runaway train. As enthusiastic, surrealistic and swelling as Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns.

“Steamdome is both more limitless and more brazen than my previous projects. The time was ripe to wield the broadest paintbrush and stir up the biggest emotions with this band,” says Ola. “Maybe a lot of what I have done before appealed to a dedicated audience of listeners, but Steamdome is to a much greater degree a physical experience.”

Steamdome changes track, and barrels along into a landscape where rhythmical patterns, beat and groove are the dominant elements. The Mechanical Fair was described as belonging to a “mutton western” genre, and this description is, if anything, even more appropriate now. With three of the country’s most innovative drummers on board, the bows, strings and resin have been replaced by sticks, metal and a variety of drums. Steamdome is seething with visual energy. The music winds its way through steep cliffs, far-ranging vistas, sharp curves, sheer drops and nocturnal landscapes where the only anchoring point is the suggestive rhythm of a train that never stops.

Ola Kvernberg has hand-picked a hard-hitting team of musicians for Steamdome. The locomotive is propelled by drummer Erik Nylander (Mechanical Fair, Liarbird), Børge Fjordheim (Sivert Høyem, Monical Heldal) and Hans Hulbækmo (Broen, Atomic, Moskus) along with bassist Nikolai Hængsle Eilertsen (Elephant9, Band of Gold). In addition to Ola Kvernberg himself on fiddle, viola, etc., the music is kept at the boiling point by guitarist and jack-of-all-trades Øyvind Blomstrøm (El Cuero, Odd Nordstoga) and the innovative organist Daniel Buner Formo (Trondheim Jazzorkester).

Ola Kvernberg - violin, viola, Hammond B3 organ, Vox Continental,
harmonium, guitar, theremin, Taurus, drums, percussion
Øyvind Blomstrøm - electric guitar, baritone guitar, pedal steel guitar
Nikolai Hængsle - electric bass
Daniel Buner Formo - Hammond B3 organ
Erik Nylander - drums, pandeiro, tambourine, quirky percussion
Hans Hulbækmo - djembe, bongos, tambourine, drums
Børge Fjordheim - drums, prepared autoharp

Tracklist:
01 - Prologue
02 - And Now
03 - Caterpillar
04 - Black Lemon
05 - Go Up
06 - Above the Dance, Pt. 1
07 - Above the Dance, Pt. 2
08 - Through the Mantle
09 - Credits


Thanks to the Original customer!