Sheriffs of Nothingness - An Autumn Night at the Crooked Forest (2020)

SOFA is the home for one of the most interesting string duos in Norway, whichever genre. We are talking about Sheriffs of Nothingness, featuring Kari Rønnekleiv and Ole-Henrik Moe. They continue to impress and surprise us with their compelling music. Their fourth release on SOFA is a mature confirmation of profound interplay and musicmaking.

An Autumn Night at the Crooked Forest is a sort of tribute to the oldest and most traditional place for afterthoughts, meditation and reflection: the fireplace. Be it a bonfire (as it was for the first, say, five million years), or an indoor fireplace, or, even a woodstove could do the works as the place for people to gather, to tell stories, to share thoughts, or, to just be. This art of just being around the fireplace is perhaps what this album is trying to be аbout: Four improvised pieces, dedicated to different types of firewood, or how it burns and glooms. Consequently the music on this album is not really moving anywhere in particular, it just is, trying to emphasize the point in everyday life where you are not trying to move on, where one can allow oneself to just halt and let your thoughts move freely. This record is recorded in the middle of Krokskogen (west of Oslo), in an old cabin, and by a fireplace that was, in different ways, burning all the time. So, all the way, you can hear it crackle, gently.