Fredrik Rasten
Lineaments
Norway SOFA MUSIC SOFA597 CD (2023)
Here comes another fine release from SOFA, who released the excellent Martin Taxt album Second Room last year. I had not heard of Fredrik Rasten before. As a composer, we are told, Rasten is concerned with Just Intonation and “…related sound phenomena…” and cites an interest in “….the ancient Hindustani Dhrupad tradition, where fine-grained intonations of tones and their timbral changes in the fusion of vocals and tanpura strings evoke a deep listening experience.” So far, so good.
From relatively modest tools – plucked acoustic and electric guitars, vocal humming, electronic bows on additional acoustic and electric guitars, sine waves and metal chain, Rasten creates a highly detailed, highly emotive music, developing his approach on his earlier album, Six Moving Guitars – also on SOFA – which was conceived to be performed by a group of six choreographed dancers interacting with prepared acoustic guitars. The piece can also be seen as a study in how a group of people, without necessarily being trained musicians, can act together in a musical situation based on awareness of listening and spatial orientation. It is fascinating to watch footage -a quick search yields this, a 2021 performance of Six Moving Guitars supported by Louth Contemporary Music Society:
In contrast, Lineaments instead makes Rasten himself the focus of the activity necessary to facilitate the score. At first, Rasten’s music brings to mind the work of Cristiàn Alvear, although perhaps a little less – but not much – rigorous and austere, both of which are attractive and desirable attributes in this kind of minimal approach to guitar to my mind. However, whereas Alvear is a highly skilled, focused interpreter of other composer’s material, Rasten is on a journey to mine his own imagination through the actions of others and chance elements.