The sound of the future is always going to be one step ahead as we delve into what our brightest hopes will be in the years to come. For Jacob Holm-Lupo, he always keeps an eye on that target with his project Donner.
Following up to 2021’s Hesitant Light, The Van Gennep Gap, which is named after the Dutch-German-French ethnographer Arnold Van Gennep, the father of liminality, is a series of vignettes, detailing impressions from various locations in the south-eastern district of Norway called Grenland.
Dominated by several cities, Lupo tackles the themes on this album as a powerful experience to discover the mystery and hidden wonders beyond the area that he lives in. There are moments where he goes into this electronica route with some trip-hop atmosphere’s set to the music of the land of the rising sun coming across the horizon with ‘Kebab Kowboys’, followed by the Tangerine Dream route which speaks of Atem and Phaedra as if it was recorded in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s with ‘I Saw Bright Lights Above the Hills’.
Trumpeter Jonas Vemork Kilmøy makes an appearance on this album playing the mournful arrangements behind the string sections of ‘Grey Skies Over Stridsklev’ which is a nod to the 1980s jazz sound from the ECM label while Solstein guitarist Stian Larsen adds in his Terje Rypdal and Allan Holdsworth approach for ‘The 7-11 Ice Cream Trek’.
Stian adds in his virtuosic fretwork, playing off into the night as Lupo’s mellotron and electronic grooves sets up this film-noir like effect, finding out more clues and mysteries that the killer has left behind. It almost as if it was something straight out of an episode of the original Miami Vice series that Lupo visions himself, recording the score to the series way back in time when the fashion and vibes were a real stunner in its heyday.
And everyone trying to mimic both Philip Michael Thomas and Don Johsnon at the same time. But once the action scenery gets intense behind ‘Downtown After Dark’, everything starts to turn into a clock-ticking momentum in which Lupo rides on his horse, galloping throughout the arrangements like sweating bullets, ready to attack.
You can feel the sweat pouring from your brow, alarming synths coming left and right, and the pressure cooker starting to boil. Those synthesizers add in the massive depths of the danger that’s about to explore. ‘Kattoya in Rain’ delves into the new wave approach with rain dropping momentum as it reaches the Avalon-era from Roxy Music of a situation where everything was beautiful, now crumpled in dust for many centuries.
Perhaps one of the most spiritual pieces that’s on this album is ‘Rose Clouds of Haeroya’ where Tusmørke’s Kristoffer Momrak makes an appearance with his flute improv, setting up this meditated guidance throughout the composition. Here, Lupo creates this sleeping trance where you can just close your eyes, clear your mind, and vision yourself into the unknown and experience the wonders in all of its landscaping glory.
Lupo always challenges his listeners as an experiment to see where he would tackle next. Whether you get it or you don’t, you have to appreciate the challenges he takes when it comes to Donner. It may take repeatable listens to get an understanding on where he’s going to go next, but the adventure will always lay ahead of him in the years to come.
