Strand in the new mini album by San Francisco based Danish singer Ria Aursjoen who also sings in Octavian Winters. The Mini Album was produced by William Faith at 13 Studio in Chicago. The only additional musician is Stephan Bryan Salit who plays guitar on two tunes.
The album opens with the single Nytar a slow elegiac strings and shakers ethereal awakening for the start of another New Year, vocals are in the vein of Heidi Mortenson or Mari Boine Person circa Gula Gula.
Apollo opens with moon landing guitars with a basic backbeat and shifting tones, gauzy vocals intone a tale of a lover whose tongue tattoos your skin, Ria's vocals open out, while the power of what they have between them is explored.
Lilypad takes a deep bass pulse and clap track for the base for the guitars and synths to wind around, Ria sings about finding the end of the river, although I'm not sure if this means she's in the delta or just at a confluence, the sylph like atmospherics make it sound as if there is a light drizzle blowing through.
Suns Of Tomorrow has an almost arctic feel in similar realms to Garmana. Like you're waiting for the sun to come up over the frozen wastes, the strings and brass herald the first rays bringing hope.
For Want Of a way to confess all your sins and find a way through, with widescreen yearning swept along on waves of strings, emotions rise to the surface.
The mini album closes with the title song Strand sylph like wanderings along that beach or riverbank, twirling strands of hair flutter in the breeze, tribal neo-Sami drum patterns make this feel neo-pagan-synth-folk in sync with Bjork's work with Dirty Projectors on Mount Wittenburg Orca.
Find out more at https://aursjoen.bandcamp.com/album/strand https://aursjoen.com/ https://www.facebook.com/aursjoen
