Henrik Meierkord - Kval (2021)

A necessary follow-up his first album on Ambientologist, Kval strengthens Henrik's crossing of medieval evocation and meditative ambient cello. Where Själ sought to remain non-directional in its expression, Kval turns on a central theme, guiding a narrative through the mundane and the sublime.

From its slow dawn opening, the album soon turns to depictions of doubt and sorrow, from the toil of the everyday to the unbearable suffering of loss. Henrik's unmistakable grasp of emotive performance is steeped in centuries-old ancestral memory, bringing forth relatable experiences of the past. Kval visits the emotions we all face, and have faced for centuries, from the inspired to the stoic to the inescapably despaired.

Among this however, is the ever-present decision to be made, whether to be owned by one's suffering or to work with it. A sense of accepting life's burden begins to seep into the narrative, at first challenging but eventually reassuring, bringing much needed peace to life's patterns.

And at the end of it all, transcendence. A better view of the landscape. Crossroads, growing pains, necessary suffering, all inseparable parts of being human, and the only way to truly grow.