Glåsbird - Norskfjǫrðr (2020)

Glåsbird's anonymous and imaginary travels to far flung locations continues, with this next excursion landing at the Norwegian fjords. The first two releases dealt with the more treacherous locations of Greenland and Svalbard but in Norskfjǫrðr, the dramatic and breathtaking landscape is underpinned by a road network which connects islands, peninsulas and mountains. A human thread of highway runs through this wild and rugged setting, passing lonely wood cabins and flashes of green.

To reflect this landscape, Glåsbird imagined a journey north to the edge of the Arctic sea over several days, stopping to capture the intimate acoustics of painted wooden shacks and drawing in the landscape through tiny window panes. Whilst the previous releases use reverb-heavy strings or tape-decaying piano to reflect the cold, stark expanse of snow, Norskfjǫrðr makes use of acoustic timbres with more emphasis on the raw sound. Various creaks and scrapes rustle underneath these melodies to reflect the sound from inside the cabin, micro-sound fragments being all the more audible due to the silent outdoors. A hint of folk is present at times in the form of bowed and plucked strings, to reflect the fauna and flora present across the West of Scandinavia. The familiar modern classical tones of piano and strings breathe a stark and chilling spine from time to time before the gently dramatic Endeligfjord marks the end of the journey, looking back out to the Barents sea.