Sverre Larssen ‘Wind Harp Recordings 1976-1977’ 12” (O. Gudmundsen Minde)

The history of experimental music is not just in the hallowed names, records, and studios of current remembrance, but in the forgotten developments, obscurities and isolations which are lost in time, of which were never really found to begin with. The intersection of experimental music with other creative – and non-creative – disciplines is an essential part of the cross-pollenation of ideas and techniques which has fed the development of outsider music, and is convergence which has frequently incorporated the earth’s natural elemental forces – the power of which has the capacity to dwarf any electronic creation.

Sverre Larssen was a Norwegian businessman who in the early 1970s constructed a wind harp – in his case a twelve-stringed instrument, capturing the interaction of the wind with the instrument’s strings via contact microphones – through, it seems, a combination of engineering ability, rudimentary external instructions, and a healhy does of intuition. This LP on O. Gudmundsen Minde releases the only available recordings of Sverre’s creation, obtained from his family and publicly available for the first time.

Even across multiple recordings the LP is essentially one – albeit beautiful – outcome: a low tonal drone with slight fluctuations and imperfections, from which a prism of harmonic overtones and sympathetic vibrations come and go, the resilience on the initial octaves giving way to a looser structure in the upper layers of Larsen’s captivating drones.

Where the pieces differ is in the depth and strength of that harmonic overlay, “Nordavinden I” quite strong in its base layer and minimalist in its higher registers, whereas “Nordavinden II” emphasises a mid-range tonal sheen almost absent from the first track. The environment itself is also a variable, the wind more audible on “Sonnavinden” as it merges with the spiralling overtones emitted from Sverre’s wind harp. But even from that singular realisation the result is captivating, the gorgeousness of the kaleidoscopic harmonic movements more than enough to move these recordings beyond ‘simple drone’ descriptors.

I have only two disappointments, entirely contradictory and born from my abhorrent mono-lingualism. The first is the disappointingly short blurb on the back cover, and lack of other historical materials or analysis. For what is promoted as a special historical find, the importance or context of Sverre’s work is difficult to appreciate from the confined description on the back cover. The second is the interviews which pad out the B side, all in Norwegian and featuring only a few gusts of musical content. I’m sure these would be satisfactorily (or at least somewhat) expository if I could understand them (correcting my first criticism), but as it is the B side comes up short.

Even with that possible insight obscured, the beauty of Sverre’s work is standalone enchanting, and  I don’t need an historical context to listen to this LP enraptured. Those with an interest in the works of Alan Lamb or Alvin Lucier’s classic ‘Music On A Long Thin Wire’ will have a (or at least, my) starting point for Sverre Larssen’s work, but the musicality which Sverre extracts is all his own.

https://ogudmundsenminde.bandcamp.com/album/wind-harp-recordings-1976-1977