Traces of Oblivion Ole Lützow, Stefan Östersjö, Jakob Riis

• 1Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): I. Circular Patterns04:43
• 2Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): II. Revisited and Inspirited01:04
• 3Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): III. Fragments of an Imagined Music08:14
• 4Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): IV. In the End Perhaps Even Lost03:16
• 5Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): V. Beneath a Porous Veneer01:45
• 6Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): VI. Discrete Articulations01:10
• 7Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): VII. Vigilantly Awake10:36
• 8Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): VIII. Adrift and Deserted06:54
• 9Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): IX. Memories of the Forgotten05:37
• 10Lützow-Holm, Östersjö, Riis: Traces of Oblivion (Version for Alto Guitar & Electronics): X. A Disappearance Through Erosion02:54
• Total Runtime46:13

Info for Traces of Oblivion

Footprint Records is proud to present our new album Traces of Oblivion, featuring classical guitarist Stefan Östersjö and free-form electronic wizard Jakob Riis. The music borders between improvisation and composition, created in a collaboration between composer Ole Lützow-Holm and Stefan Östersjö. Originally written for Östersjö's 11-stringed alto guitar, this piece of music has been expanded and developed like a Pandora's box, with twists and turns over the course of several years. Traces of Oblivion is not a traditional composition with a beginning and end, but rather an archive of sketches and score pages with electronic and acoustic sound recordings. Östersjö and Riis have created a truly singular album based on these raw materials. With careful processing of the guitar's acoustic sound, strands and traces are woven in twirling arabesques, interrupted by explosive disruptions and ethereal reflections.

Traces of Oblivion for 11-stringed alto guitar materializes as a kaleidoscopic, incomplete outcome of extensive dialogues with the guitarist and researcher Stefan Östersjö. Through practical as well as conceptual elaborations we explored endless procedures inspired by the instrument’s characteristics with regard to timbre and architectural design. Gradually, two particular aspects came to play a significant role: On the one hand a construction feature of the alto guitar with five scale-tuned strings in the bass followed by six chord strings (simultaneously proposing, as it were, historical resonance and unbiased experimentation) and, on the other, a scordatura whose micro-tonal deviations constitute the acoustic habitat of the music. The core organizing principle is made up of carefully chiselled gestures, some of which are recorded sound files layered in loops and activated in the course of the performance as an archive – memory and oscillation at the same time. Moving through transient, winding passages and circular patterns, it is as if Traces of Oblivion evoked images related to a sense of loss.

Stefan Östersjö, 11-stringed alto guitar
Jakob Riis, electronics

Dr. Stefan Östersjö
is a leading classical guitarist. Since his debut CD (Swedish Grammy in 1997) he has recorded extensively and toured Europe, the US and Asia. His special fields of interest are interaction with electronics, experiments with stringed instruments other than the classical guitar and collaborative practices, also between different cultures. As a soloist he has cooperated with conductors such as Lothar Zagrosek, Peter Eötvös, Pierre André Valade, Mario Venzago, Franck Ollu and Andrew Manze. In 2009 he became a research fellow at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent. He is currently associate professor of artistic research in music at the Malmö Academy of Music.

1992-ongoing Guitarist, freelance performer, active internationally as soloist in festivals, with orchestras and in chamber ensembles. Since his debut CD (Swedish Grammy in 1997) Östersjö has recorded extensively and toured Europe, the US and Asia. Two special fields of interest are the interaction with electronics, and experimental work with different kinds of stringed instruments other than the classical guitar. His great interest in chamber music has resulted in the founding of flute, viola and guitar-trio HOT 3 and in collaborations with most chamber ensembles and important soloists in Scandinavia such as Jonny Axelsson, Geir Draugsvoll, KammarensembleN and Ensemble Gageego. Östersjö is frequently invited to give lectures and master classes at universities, festivals and academic conferences. He has a long-standing collaborative practice with leading composers around the world and has recorded the solo guitar music of Elliott Carter, Tristan Murail, James Dillon a.o. and often developing into longitudinal projects with recurring new commissions throughout the years, for instance with Per Nørgård (DK), Richard Karpen (US), Kent Olofsson (SWE), Christer Lindwall (SWE). Since 2005 he has also been engaged in a series of projects with the objective of merging western art music with extra-European traditions, most notably in the Swedish-Vietnamese group The Six Tones, with master musicians Ngo Tra My and Nguyen Thanh Thuy. As a soloist he has cooperated with conductors such as Lothar Zagrosek, Peter Eötvös, Pierre André Valade, Mario Venzago, Franck Ollu, Andrew Manze and Tuomas Ollila. He has recorded extensively for the Swedish National Radio and for radio and TV-stations around the world.

1995-2014 artistic director of Ensemble Ars Nova, a leading Swedish ensemble for contemporary art music and a platform for many cross-disciplinary projects with choreographers, music theatre and film, e.g. the longstanding collaboration between Ensemble Ars Nova and teatr Weimar http://www.teatrweimar.se/ in the SONAT (Sonic Arts Theatre) project series initiated by Östersjö in 2008. As a director of the ensemble, Östersjö also initiated two exchange projects that led to the creation of Dom Dom a center for new music in Hanoi headed by the Vietnamese composer Kim Ngoc Tran Thi with support from SIDA (Swedish Internation Developmen Cooperation Agency) http://domdomhanoi.wordpress.com/tag/hanoi/ and brought the ensemble into a large scale collaborative project with ensembles, research centers and studios around Europe with support from Culture 2000 and Culture 2007 titled Integra http://www.integralive.org/

Performances (selection) - soloist at Stockholm New Music Festival 1999, 2001, 2003 - Soloist with the symphony orchestra of the Bayerische Rundfunk/Lothar Zagrosek, 2004 - soloist in the Sonorities festival, Belfast (2006) - Soloist at the MusicAcoustica Festival Beijing (2006) - soloist with the Lithuanian State Orchestra/Peter Eötvös at the World New Music Days in Vilnius 2008 - soloist with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (many times, e.g.in 2005 with Mario Venzago, in 2012 with Andrew Manze) - soloist with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra/Franck Ollu, 2008 - soloist at Warsaw Autumn festival (1998, 2001, 2009, 2010) - featured soloist at the Viitasaari festival (five productions in 2009) - Soloist at the NYYD Festival, Estonia 2009 - invited as sound artist creating music to Isaac Julien’s film Better Life at the Gothenburg Arts Biennial 2011 - Soloist (four productions) at the Hanoi New Music Festival 2013 - In March 2014 Östersjö premiered Nam Mai, a new work for three soloists, film and orchestra with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and his group The Six Tones, due for release on DVD in 2017. ...

Booklet for Traces of Oblivion