Origami Galaktika
Stjernevandring
KomKol Autoprod. (No 098)

There are at least two good reasons to make a review of the first ever Origami LP (I believe) in the first edition of Luna Kafe. At least one of the Kafe editors is a hopeless vinyl addict. And the track that stretches across the entire side two of the album is called Månedans, which means Moon Dance, or even better: Luna Dance.

Origami is a strange brew. They seem to be a small nucleus of people and anyone else who has something to contribute to a project may join. There are several different Origamis: Teknika, Arktika, Exotika... Before one of the boys got married last summer he recorded a single for his beloved as Origami Romantika. Origami has toured Europe once or twice and there have been numerous Origami releases during the last 3 or 4 years, mostly on tape but also quite a few CDs. The music and sounds include techno, experimental, ambient and tribe but have great variety, depending on what kind of Origami is involved.

With Stjernevandring Origami Galaktika - naturally - reaches for the stars. The title means Star Wander. Well then, is this space music or what? Not completely. It is instrumental, quite calm and dominated by repetitive keyboards, something in between minimalism, monotonous and ambient music. It is definitely not new age, there is too much going on and too many none-harmonic sounds involved: distant voices, rumble, splashes of water etc.

To me the title track which covers all of side one of the LP, about 30 minutes long, is a perfect soundtrack on your walkman when you're out walking on some cold and clear winter night. The frost bites your cheeks, the snow creaks under your feet for each step and the stars are trembling above because of the frost. Some sparkling northern or southern light might appear in the distance... For those of you living at latitudes where you seldom have frost or snow, listening to Stjernevandring through headphones in a dark room might give you some impressions of what a cold and clear winter night in Norway might be like. The track sounds very down to earth to me, but with a huge and dominating sky above. The label Origami Arktika might in fact have been more suitable. Månedans on the other hand seems much more galactic and scary to me. The dance might take place in a Lunar sea with some unidentified horrific creature hiding in the deep. A soundtrack for some Alien film, perhaps, or an HP Lovecraft story. My only objection to the album is that I think it would have been a better idea to release these recordings on CD (sorry Knut Tore!) to avoid some crackles here & there. But then it would have been impossible to include the interesting poster by artist Cicilie Risåsen, which by the way is folded in a very dull and un-origami way.

KomKol Autoprod. - Kirkegata 37 A, 7014 Trondheim, Norway.
E-mail: thboe@online.no

Copyright © 1996 JP