Stein Urheim’s Speilstillevariasjoner

cover, Speilstillevariasjoner, a view from above of two people lying on a dock, peering over the end into the waterNorwegian guitarist and composer Stein Urheim has an extensive back catalog on the Hubro label going back a dozen years, and also has contributed to the music of several other Hubro artists (and favorites of mine), including Frode Haltli’s Avant Folk projects, Erlend Apneseth, and Benedicte Maurseth’s Hárr, one of my favorite albums of 2022. His music tends to be pretty non-traditional and experimental, and Speilstillevariasjoner is absolutely no exception, but I definitely found a connection to it.

The album title translates to something like “Silent Reflection Variations,” and it’s intended to be listened to as a whole, because many of the 11 pieces flow seamlessly into one another. The focus of this album is on the exploration of alternate guitar tunings he refers to as speilstille tunings, an extension of his long-time involvement with microtonal playing. Urheim has enlisted several musicians of like mind to create this album: Hans Kjorstad on violin, Sam Gendel on saxophone and electronics, Siv Øyunn Kjenstad on drums and voice, and Ikue Mori on electronics. Urheim himself plays acoustic and electric modified guitars, the Bolivian ronroco, tamboura, percussion, and something called the “just intonation sine tone generator.”

Those “modified guitars” are fretless and have a unique combination of strings that suit the tuning. “The setup makes it impossible to think or play conventional, standard guitar, so you don’t fall into familiar patterns,” Urheim says. “Instead, you are led into a unique way of playing and creating, within a few fundamental keys. Much of the basis for the composition method comes the interplay between me, my fellow musicians, and this unorthodox guitar setup, and what it affords in terms of possibilities.”

Field recordings and spacey, often playful electronics mingle with the traditional sound of Norwegian fiddle and Urheim’s decidedly untraditional picking and plucking of the guitars and other stringed instruments in unusual open tunings. Lest I scare you off, fans of John Fahey will find many familiar sounds and motifs in Speilstillevariasjoner with those open tunings, the creative picking patterns, and incorporation of slides on several tracks including “Morgendugg på svart panser” (Morning dew on a black hat) and “Kartlav er ukjente kontinent.”

I hear echoes of the pastoral tunes laid down by American guitarist Bill Frissel and fiddler Jenny Scheinman in tracks like “Speiler seg stille” (Reflecting quietly) and “Speilbølger.” The brief “Spor i lyngen” (Tracks in the heather) incorporates raga-like scales and the tamboura drone. The slide-guitar forward “Kartlav er ukjente kontinent,” which features just Urheim on a variety of guitars, would fit nicely on your ambient country playlist. And the album’s nine-minute centerpiece, the delightfully titled “Ferskvannsdelfinens (freshwater dolphin) blues” is playful, alternately earthy and ethereal, and endlessly engaging.

More about this and other Stein Urheim albums on Bandcamp.

(Hubro, 2025)

Gary Whitehouse

A fifth-generation Oregonian, Gary is a retired journalist and government communicator. Since the 1990s he has been covering music, books, food & drink and occasionally films, blogs and podcasts for Green Man Review. His main literary interests for GMR are science fiction, music lore, and food & cooking. A lifelong lover of music, his interests are wide ranging and include folk, folk rock, jazz, Americana, classic country, and roots based music from all over the world. He also enjoys dogs, birding, cooking, whisk(e)y, and coffee.

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