Billed as a world premiere for an impressive ramshorn, lur and willow flute album, of a kind never heard before!

Eilif Gundersen, composer,producer and principal musician on this project, gets some extraordinary sounds from the lur (wooden trumpet)and the bukkehorn (goats horn) not too disimilar from the ones sported by the goat on the album cover.

Eilif is joined by Gunnlaug Lien Myr - vocals, Terje Isungset - Perkussion and Tor Egil Kreken - Bass and Banjo.

This is an album that is probably best savoured, undisturbed with headphones or a good set of speakers in order to fully appreciate the breadth of Gundersen's repetoire and to immerse yourself in the music with all its subtleties.

The album opens with a warm up tune played on the lur which wouldn't seem out of place as a lament or salute, it reminds me of our village silver band and the cornet solo played on Remembrance Sunday. This sound is a common theme amongst the albums shorter tracks including one entitled Trolljagarn, a tune for chasing aways Trolls.

When Gunnlug Lien Myr lends her vocals to the tracks I can hear a connection with Norwegian music and some of the songs in the British Folk tradition. To the untrained ear her singing of "Maria hun er en jomfru ren" reminds me of Bella Hardy singing Down in Yon Forest.

There's also tracks on there that would sit very nicely in an avante garde jazz, art radio programme.

A very textural album that is made all the more fascinating when you realise that Eilif is using the tracks to mark and celebrate events in the calender. He notes that, "our oldest instruments and the tunes played on them have always been closely connected to nature and traditional rural life and rural life has always followed the rythmic cycle of the seasons." In Norway there is a type of eternal calnder called the primstav whose symbols provide advice as to which dates are best for planting (thus the title of the album translates as Sowing Day), harvesting and moving to the summer farm, as well as knowing what kind of weather to expect. The symbols and special days of the primstav are integrated into this album which has 33 tracks running from April, the first day of the summer with the smell of sap and a pregnant Earth, through to March the following year.....

33 reasons to play a cut form this album throughout the year, very clever!

It comes with a booklet in Norwegian, English, Spanish and French. Released in June 2008 it is available through the label's net shop.

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