What happens when you combined two bands with a powerful force that hurls you towards our solar system? The result? It becomes a roller-coaster ride with an incredible outcome. Fellow Norwegian maestros Kanaan and neo-folk innovators Ævestaden have finally decided to collaborate together by bringing in something that’ll make you whet your appetite.
Langt, langt vekk (Far, far away) is an album that is mixed between Norwegian Folk music of old traditional arrangements and psalms that becomes a powder-keg, waiting to explode at any second. Kanaan unleashed four studio albums from the Jansen label since 2021 with its psych-jazz rock while Ævestaden, as I’ve mentioned earlier, are a neo-folk trio that carries not just ancient instruments, but electronic music with a distinctive sound.
The mournful intro ‘Ganglåt bortåt’ opens the album with a minimal dance of death between strings and melodic guitar arrangements, setting up the orientation that’s about to begin. Once it segues into ‘Habbor og Signe’ everything starts to click. We’re not talking about Celtic atmospheres; we’re talking about a walk into the mystic forests that’s waiting for us.
It goes straight into a harder space folk-rock adventure in which you can imagine Motorpsycho handling the controls, making the jump to light-speed during its Heavy Metal Fruit years while the mouth jaw in the Australian outback comes in full swing throughout ‘Fiskaren’.
Fast-paced hi-hats, chamber textures, brutal guitar section at the end, the two bands are geared up for a challenge that’s waiting across the border. Then, we head back into the light-speed momentum as we go through time and space once more on the title-track.
You can tell the nods of Motorpsycho are in full swing with a lot of chugging guitar noise with its wah-wah pedal that’s up to its maximum level, trippy drum patterns, angelic vocalisations, and psych to the core that’ll make you want to dig out the albums Rune Grammofon have unleashed. Once ‘Farvel’ takes us into the Indian tribe, it becomes a smoky, jazzy, yet sinister approach between drums and pick bass into the forefront.
The calling of the gods, meditated boundaries, and ghostly harps filling up the venue will make you want to be free from all of the complicated lives listeners went through. The trance effect comes out in full battering momentum on ‘Vallåt efter C.G. Färje’. Here, the two bands make another jump for its angelic vocalisations, blistering hallucinated arrangements, and film-noir effects that come into play.
Closing track ‘Vardtjenn’ falls into the world of the Berlin School of Music meets the score to Valerie and her Week of Wonders, done by Zdenek Liska. It carries the ghostly vocals, brush-filled drums, and the cross-over between Silver Koulouris’ textures with Aphrodite’s Child, and the Alpha Centauri-era of Tangerine Dream. Why do you think it carries that early Floydian approach from their time as an underground band before achieving status with Dark Side?
It’s a piece you could definitely walk or jog in the morning or afternoon to clear your head and think about what you’re going to do. This is the ultimate trip for Kanaan and Ævestaden, to take us through the musical journey with their own portal, and their own vision by giving us a chance to see what lies ahead. If you’re very new to their music, then this might be a start for you.
