Label: Rune Grammofon - RCD2204

ボイスパフォーマーとしての実力も示した2002年発表のソロデビュー作[Voice]は個人的に名作と感じている、DNAのIkue Moriを含め多くの音楽家と共同作品を残したりしている、ノルウェーの女性コンポーザーMaja S. K. Ratkje。本作はバレエの為に作曲された2019年の最新楽曲集[Sult]。金属およびプラスチック管、管楽器を装着した改造オルガンを使い即興演奏、自身の歌と合わせた彼女なりのコンテンポラリージャズ。時折耳に痛い雑音なども織り混ぜつつ不穏で美しい楽曲を作り上げています。





Based upon Ratkje´s music created for the ballet ”Sult” (”Hunger") by profiled director Jo Strømgren for the Norwegian National Ballet, this is a departure from records and live settings normally associated with Maja S. K. Ratkje, as we find her placed behind a modified, wiggly and out of tune pump organ, singing songs and improvising. Metal tubes, PVC tubes and a wind machine were built into the organ; guitar strings, a bass string, a resin thread, metal and glass percussion and a bow are also utilized. With little or no previous experience, she had to learn to play the thing live, using both hands and feet at the same time as singing. Maja played live on stage during every performance, but later modified and recorded the music especially for this record, with Frode Haltli co-producing. It´s a freestanding document, an entity of its own, but the atmosphere is very much the same as in the play: the dusty city of Kristiania in the 19th century, the street noises and the sounds. ”Hunger” is Norwegian author Knut Hamsun´s breakthrough novel from 1890. Partly autobiographical, it describes a starving young man´s struggle to make it as a writer in Kristiania (now Oslo). It has been said that the whole modern school of fiction starts with "Hunger", with it´s themes around mental states and the irrationality of the human mind.