Description:	CD on Make Mine Music
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Experimental / Abstract
	Label:	Make Mine Music
	Price:	£8.79
	Availability:	In stock. Dispatched in 1 working day.

4
...according to our Ant on 20 November 2008.

Along with the Library Tapes and label sampler CD's out on the label this week, Make Mine Music have teamed up with Vogor Recordings also released an album by Calder AKA Lárus Sigurðsson and Ólafur Josephsson who is the man behind Stafrænn Hákon. The duo had a release on Unlabel a while back. This is more of their lovely mixture of electronics and acoustic instruments which include guitar and piano, harp mandolin, bells, piano, ukulele, mandolin and glockenspiel. The album is packed with heartwarming tones, weeping strings and melancholy melody. Like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, 'Lower' album possesses the quality and fragile beauty we associate with the work of many icelandic artists.

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What their label says...

Calder formed in Iceland when musical instrument maker Lárus Sigurðsson and Ólafur Josephsson, who is perhaps best known for his recordings under the alias Stafrænn Hákon, met and decided to join forces. Their first collaborations resulted in self-titled five-track album of improvised, experimental instrumentals that was released through Ólafur’s Vogor Recordings and later picked up by UK indie Unlabel. Lárus' background is in classical music, having played with various Icelandic musicians and self-released a handful of solo recordings. His recent album Jarðhörpusálmar was improvised and recorded using musical instruments that he had  designed and built himself. Ólafur Josephsson has been experimenting with ambient guitar arrangements under the name Stafrænn Hákon since 1999. He has released his music through various labels including his own Vogor Recordings, the Resonant Label and Awkward Silence Recordings, with the music progressing and becoming increasingly refined since his debut album Eignas Jeppa in 2001. After the creative success of Calder’s debut, a second album was conceived in 2005 when Lárus and Ólafur started exchanging ideas, shaping and moulding their music, with the material composed in a truly collaborative way - Lárus handed Ólafur acoustic melodic ideas and Ólafur added electronic elements, with tracks gradually acquired shape, depth and life. With this new music, melody, structure and beats have come more to the fore, although the beautiful and haunting guitar atmospherics are still evident, running like a thread through the album. 2008 saw the completion of this process and the resulting album has been entitled Lower.