Phase 4: The Sami joik, Indonesian Gamelan and Mongolian throat singers (Autumn 2015)

Joik is a tradition of Sami culture and a personal expression that is rooted in an emotion, and performed as such. Rasch recorded the vocalists Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska and Per Tor Turi, as well as Roger Ludviksen at the studio Artic Recordings in Kautokeino, in the northernmost part of Norway. The Sami music style sometimes has a sustained, one-note, drone-based style of singing also evident in Mongolian throat singing. The musicians heard the music for the first time when making their musical responses.

An Indonesian Gamelan Orchestra, together with band leader Ismet Ruchimat and the Norwegian flautist and electronic musician Patrick Shaw Iversen, held a recording session in Kristiansand as a part of their tour of Norway. A challenge presented itself since the tuning of all the Gamelan instruments was locked to the B minor scale, which did not correspond to the harding fiddle keys E major and D-minor, or the Jew’s harp recording keys C#, F and G. As a result, the responses had to be made in a different key to the source. This made it impossible for them to play along with it, resulting in several of the responses becoming autonomous pieces. We did, however, have Kirsten Bråten Berg’s source song, Guds Godhet, in B-minor. Here, the orchestra did several takes. Iversen combines electronics and composes realtime loops with his flute, so additional solo responses were given by him.

Rasch travelled to Beijing, China, where UiA have an ongoing collaboration with MIDI School of Music through Concert Norway and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Traditional musicians from China, Tibet and Mongolia were recorded at the MSM Studio and our contact, Haoming, invited selected traditional musicians and artists from China, Mongolia and Tibet for responses with instruments like Guzheng and the player Morin Khuur which did throat singing simultaneously.