Emotional Switches by Eivind Opsvik
“That music, unsurprisingly, is a dizzying mix of musique concrète, electronica, Krautrock and ’80s pop, among much else.“
This is how New York Times writer Giovanni Russonello described this album when he got to preview it last year for a NYT feature on Mr. Opsvik.
In 2017 Eivind Opsvik, a bassist-composer and veteran of the Brooklyn experimental scene who has always enjoyed being a hermit in the studio, decided to embark on the adventure of making a solo record.
The goal was to challenge himself, try something new, and to draw on his background in improvised music and jazz and transfer that improvisatory spirit to the studio.
Opsvik knew from the get-go that he wanted to have vocals and lyrics be a big part of it. He’s always enjoyed using his voice, but he wanted the vocals on the record to reflect his background as an instrumentalist and thus treat the voice more like another instrument and a texture and less like the obvious focal point of each song.
It is a solo album in its truest sense; it was all conceived, played, recorded, mixed, and produced by Eivind in his basement recording studio, Greenwood Underground, in his home in Brooklyn.
So!..... this album, "Emotional Switches", will present you with concise art-pop songs like "Multiply" and "Steepy", deeper explorations of specific moods like the episodic off kilter dance track "Glass Box Boy", long form layered pop adventures like "Emotional Switches", and more ambient introspective songs like "Flat Orange Soda" and "Vulture’s Hope."
Hope you enjoy!
Tracklist
| 1. | Solen Spraker som en Foss | 2:31 |
| 2. | Multiply | 3:01 |
| 3. | Emotional Switches | 6:08 |
| 4. | Into Thin Air | 4:02 |
| 5. | Den Store Roen | 4:34 |
| 6. | Flat Orange Soda | 3:12 |
| 7. | Glass Box Boy | 5:58 |
| 8. | Steepy | 2:55 |
| 9. | Caves | 5:30 |
| 10. | Vulture's Hope | 6:48 |
Videos
Credits
All music composed, performed, recorded, mixed, and produced by Eivind Opsvik at Greenwood Underground in Brooklyn, NY, 2017-2021
Mastered by Brian Lucey at Magic Garden Mastering, Los Angeles, CA
“Emotional Switches” contains samples of Peder Simonsen’s modular synthesizer
EO: double bass, electric bass, vocals, drums and percussion, wurlitzer electric piano, clavinet, farfisa organ and synthesizer, prophet synthesizer, hammond solovox, electric and acoustic guitars, oberheim dmx drum machine, found sounds and field recordings, boxes with knobs, software and computer
Photography by Michelle Arcila
Model: IZO
Design and collage by Espen Friberg
Special thanks to Geoff Kraly, Peder Simonsen, Hanne Hukkelberg, Brian Adler, Peter Opsvik, and Michelle Arcila for their invaluable input during the making of this album
License
All rights reserved.Tags
Eivind Opsvik, born and bred in Norway but resident in New York City for almost three decades, has developed an utterly individual musical soundprint, one that blends the song-minded composition and creative studio craft of art rock with the virtuosic edge and spontaneity of progressive jazz.