Description
Strange Hands, by the Norwegian guitarist and composer Eivind Aarset, and the follow-up to his acclaimed best-selling Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey finds his long-running quartet in lean, restless form. Joined by violinist Sara Ovinge, bansuri player Mira Thiruchelvam, and producer-engineer Bjarne Stensli, Aarset, Audun Erlien, Wetle Holte, and Erland Dahlen refine their shared language into something both more direct and more unpredictable. The music feels closer to the bone: fewer adornments, sharper impact, yet still suffused with the cinematic play of light and shadow that defines Aarset's work.
Where earlier albums often pushed the guitar toward abstraction, Strange Hands allows recognisable strings, wood, and skin to step forward without sacrificing atmosphere. Violin and bansuri are not decorative additions but structural forces, bending harmony and colouring the air around bass and drums. Composition and improvisation move as equals: riffs dissolve into texture, textures snap into song, and timing and space do as much storytelling as melody.
From the clipped, forward-leaning pulse of "Snow Crash" to the nocturnal unease of the title track, the album thrives on tension and sideways motion. "Road Moves" unfolds with patient, indie-tinged restraint before quietly dismantling and rebuilding itself, while "The Deep Green" traces a hushed, intimate arc that opens into something radiant and expansive. A flash of humour surfaces in "Space BOB," its stubborn riff tumbling into propulsive space-rock, before the weightless "Night Swimmer" closes the record in soft pulses and suspended melody, fading like ripples after a final stroke.
Throughout, Eivind Aarset's touch remains unmistakable. The technology matters, but it serves phrasing, tone, and instinct; the precise placement of a note, its beginning and its end. As Aarset himself puts it, "The music itself always teaches us what comes next." Strange Hands listens closely, and moves forward with quiet confidence.
