Out on STROOM: Holsen & Cassiers ‘Walking In Circles’ Listen Here!
Citizen Jazz: “Holsen & Cassiers are essential pioneers of a current generation of determined musicians advancing in a seductive yet humble avant-garde as they embrace all movements. Those for which Citizen Jazz continues to struggle.”
Norwegian trumpeter Hilde Marie Holsen and Belgian singer Lynn Cassiers met for the first time at the ‘Match&Fuse’ event in Dublin 2017. Both invited as representatives for their respective countries, they got the opportunity to work together for 5 days. The collaboration felt extremely natural and resulted in a success on the night of performance. Turned out Hilde and Lynn share a similar approach to improvised music where they transform effortlessly a single instrument into a world of ambient sounds. With their distinctive electronic set ups, they discovered each others musical propositions, solidly built during their solo careers over the years.
One year after Match&Fuse the duo continued their artistic quest, taking a week to themselves in Oslo to leave some traces of their work. They concluded with a performance for Fritt Fall concert series at the Oslo Kulturhuset.
The music of Holsen/Cassiers results in a fascinating sound magma that constructs itself starting from nothing but a breath, a singular sound or gesture. Quickly these initial sounds transform themselves into the most enchanting sound textures. Within these crafty soundscapes Holsen’s unique gentle melodies emerge to surface and go hand in hand with Cassiers’ fragile bits of songs and words, offering the listener a lead through an etheric dreamworld. It’s a moving and poetic journey that can sound at once coldly electronic, seemingly abstract, and at once heartwarmingly human.
PRESS
“This one’s good – imagine Arve Henriksen jamming with Bohren, Broadcast and Lasse Marhaug. Dark, sure, but with a folkloric charm that’s impossible to ignore.(….)Walking in Circles is the duo’s first recorded material and showcases the sound they’ve now spent a few years sculpting; if you’ve heard either artist’s solo albums (like Holsen’s brilliant “Lazuli” or Cassiers’ smokey “Nacht Slakje”) you’ll be able to guess the general direction, but their collaborative sound is deeper and dreamier than anything they’ve produced on their own. … Massive recommendation (Boomkat )
“…The sound universe of these two artists knows no boundaries. We saw them the other night at Werkplaats Walter, in a completely improvised set. It’s fascinating to see how calmly these two musicians manage to paint extraordinary landscapes with their deconstructed sounds. …” (le soir)
“…Full of echoes, the album becomes spacey and, thanks to the crackling soundscapes, sudden twists and processed vocals, it seems to belong to an Arab country that has not yet been invented. Or, in other words, the STROOM label is doing it again.” (Gonzo)
“…Lynn Cassiers and Hilde Marie Holsen have the gift of embrace. Seemingly distant they come to be intimate friends thanks to their intense and direct expression, concealed behind an elaborate sound construction that comes to support your slowing breath.” (Rockerilla)
“Hilde Marie Holsen is credited with redifining the way of playing the trumpet in an experimental setting (…), Walking In Circles, in collaboration with Belgian singer Lynn Cassiers, stems from harmonic improvisation in which there is no room for conventional writing. The album is articulated between the rough drones and dissonances of Today’s Bright, to which Cassiers’ voice lends impalpable emotion, and the dilated sounds of Opening with Holsen’s trumpet recalling the memoir and images of Jan Garbarek, passing through the noisy discomfort of Life Stages Are.” (Rumore)
“Ah, trumpet and electronics! A very unusual combination. But a combination that can work so well. Of course, one first expects something like Jon Hassell, or maybe Markus Stockhausen, yet this is not quite like either. It’s all quite rich in sound, with the most unusual electronic backing, and some nice use of female voice, often with everything swamped in a thick vast reverb. There are many surprises involved as well, like Life Stages Are which kind of sounds like loads of people randomly tuning radios! If any track does at all remind me of Jon Hassell then that’s the final piece, which is Walking In Circles itself.” (Audion)
Pic by Geert Coppens
Release Show 18/06/2023 @ SOUND ARTEFACT, pics by Joeri Thiry for STUK
Lynn Cassiers 