Juhani Silvola: Wolf Hour Roundelay
Shhpuma

Certainly a major reason why Wolf Hour Roundelay sounds like no other recording has to do with the gear Juhani Silvola used to create the thirty-seven-minute set: “prepared acoustic guitar and electronics.” In truth, it's the former that's the primary focal point, as electronics have been applied so discreetly the nine pieces often sound as if they were produced using acoustic guitar alone. It's the prepared aspect that's key, however, as the Finnish/Norwegian guitarist liberally altered the instrument's sound by placing objects upon, under, and between the strings and in places used an electric guitar amplifier and pedal effects to further customize the material. Add to that an appetite for alternate tuning systems, a sensibility as attuned to traditional folk as avant-garde composition, and you've got an audacious electro-acoustic release that, oddly enough, sounds both alien and familiar.

Silvola draws from Finnish, Norwegian and Scottish traditions, but some moments also suggest the influence of America blues and folk on his playing and writing. Literary inspirations also come into play, with the opening track titled after a Borges text and others suggesting an interest in philosophical topics. Recorded at a church in Norway and mastered by Helge Sten (aka Deathprod) at his Audio Virus Lab, Wolf Hour Roundelay is pitched by Silvola as “speculative sonic archaeology,” a characterization that's probably as good as any to describe the project's tone. He's no dabbler, by the way; he has a Master's in electroacoustic composition and studied with Natasha Barrett.

While bent notes and dulcimer-like strums give “A New Refutation of Time” its distinguishing character, picking and plucking give it a countrified swampy quality too. Listening to the obsessive insectoid exploration conducted within “World of Wings and Mirages" makes it easy to picture an acoustic guitar with objects of various kinds affixed to its strings. With the amplifier in play, “The Eternal Present” more suggests a shuddering electric guitar exploration than one done with acoustic. The treatments Silvola applies do generate arresting timbres. Whereas the plucks warbling through “Meditation (Last Light)” and “Meditation (First Light)” could pass for a koto, “Night Song From the Canopy” features clusters of bowed notes suggestive of sounds coaxed from a fiddle's extreme upper and lower registers.

October 2022