Abacus is roughly 55 intense, calm, strange, confusing, recognisable, fast, and slow minutes of music. It’s quirky, melodic, bluesy, arranged with total abandon, and guitar-driven for the most part: a musical cocktail of 70s power pop, blues rock, and baroque colored contemporary classical music. It’s a record that doesn’t strive to be defined but rather strives to reflect creative diversity, improvisation, and experimentation: from the fragile piano and linear story in “Hotel Royale” to the allegorical and rough “If I Die In a Combat Zone (...)”.
Guitar Quintet in F-Major, or the album’s intermezzo if you like, is a composition in which form is re-evaluated and the string orchestra re-invented. According to Bjørn he “set out to make the electric guitar a part of a whole; an integral part of the harmonic machinery, and move away for the a-typical guitar quintet that places the classical guitar at its centre of attention.”
Bjørn has written and produced Abacus himself on a minimal budget. But with a little help from both new and old friends. The record is mastered by Don Bartley, possibly Australia’s most prolific mastering engineer (Metallica, Nick Cave, INXS, ABBA and Beatles re-issues etc), and printed by Diger Distro in Oslo.
credits
released September 6, 2021
Band
Bjørn Nes: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass (1-12)
Robert A. K. Pedersen: piano (1-4, 9-12)
Erlend Omdal: drums (1-4, 9-12)
Horus Quartet
Gina Bordini: first violin (2, 5-8)
Nhi Phuong Do: second violin (2, 5-8)
Audun Klaveness: viola (2, 5-8)
Ema Grčman: cello (2, 5-8)
Additional Personnel:
Ole Tobias Antonsen: percussion (3, 4, 9, 10, 11)
Augustus Clark: bass (9)
Toto Kruse: saxophone (4, 9)
Petter Smith Lien: trumpet (4, 9)
Mikkel Østhaug: backing vocals (1, 4, 9, 10, 11)
Silje North: backing vocals (1, 9, 10, 11)
Sara M. Berg Myrvold: backing vocals (11)
Art Direction: Bjørn Nes
Design: Espen Heiland
Photography: Eivind Lunde Tellefsen, Guro Sommer Værland, Oda Agnore Skattum
Collage images (CC) : Charles Howard Hinton (1904), Eadweard Muybridge (1987), T.Voekler (1999)
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