Tusmørke – Hinsides

Svart Records has advertised Hinsides as the most lightweight album Tusmørke has ever done, but to my ears that's only about 20% of the album. As a matter of fact some of their most doomy sounding material is also on the very same album. The group consists of Krizla (Kristoffer Momrak) on flutes, vocals, percussion, and electronics, BenediktatoR (Benedikt Momrak) on bass and vocals, the Phonemonen Marxo Solinas (Lars Fredrik Frøislie) on keyboards, HlewagastiR (Martin Nordrum Kneppen) on drums, and DreymimaðR (Øystein Bech Gadmar) on hurdy gurdy, crummhorn, various other flutes and medieval instruments. Marxo Solinas and HlewagastiR are members of Wobbler (who go by their real names there) and I get a feeling Tusmørke is the band they go to when Wobbler is taking years to come up with a new composition, never mind a new album (Wobbler finally came up with a new release From Silence to Somewhere a few months after Hinsides was released, and strangely, Tusmørke did too with the children's album Bydyra). Øystein Bech Gadmar works at the University Hospital in Oslo. The group also gets help from Ole Jørgen Benediktow, a historian at the University of Oslo.

Apparently the concept of Hinsides is of death. In March 25, 2014 Vetle Helge Momrak passed away. I presume he was the father of Benedikt (Benediktator) and Kristoffer (Krizla), which must have devastated the Momrak brothers (age 63 is still too young to pass away) so no surprise death is the theme of this album, so it's actually no surprise that a good amount of this album is actually quite doomy sounding. "Hjemsøkte Hjem" justifies Svart's advertisement of being lightweight. It's not impossible to notice how lightweight and upbeat this song is. "Lysskydrøm" is also rather lightweight having a rather lullaby feel to it, but then it unexpectedly turns to something more medieval towards the end, ending with crummhorns. "En Rykende Ruin" is a contrast between dark and gloomy and lightweight, as the first part is pretty dark and urgent sounding, and the second part is pretty lightweight. "I Feel Like Midnight" is the only song on this album sung in English and it sounds very typically Tusmørke, with that ominous vibe. But the real album's crowing glory is the 23 minute "Sainkt Sebastians Alter", by far the finest piece of music they have ever done! I'm not kidding either. The Black Death appears to be the theme of this piece, and having a rather sinister feel to this piece makes perfect sense. Having Ole Jørgen Benedictow do a lot of the spoken narration really helps with this dire tone. This is one serious piece, with some rather ominous medieval parts played on hurdy gurdy, and those bells sure help conjure up this dire atmosphere. There isn't a single note wasted, could very well be the finest 20 minute plus piece I've heard from the 2010s, and is actually as great as the best material stretching that length in the '70s!

This LP was released as a double LP set played on 45 like Änglagard's Viljans Öga, but in this case, I can't see why, this could have all easily fit onto one disc and still be able to cram all of "Sainkt Sebastians Alter" on side two. It's not like Todd Rundgren's Initiation where he crammed 75 minutes of music onto one LP back in 1975 (nearly as long as a single CD). I own plenty of single LPs even longer than Hinsides, but most are from the 1970s (Rundgren, Klaus Schulze and Genesis had been known to create single LPs around an hour long).

At first I was a bit thrown off by the lightweight material (hence the advertisement by Svart), but then I got used to it. The way I see this album is a contrast between lightweight material and the more ominous doomy material. What more can I say, this album comes highly recommended, particularly "Sainkt Sebastians Alter".