Arne Nordheim

*2024 stock* Arne Nordheim is among Norway’s most important post-war composers, particularly among those working within the field of avant-garde electronic music. Nordheim studied studied Musique concrète in Paris during the mid 1950’s, expanding his practice in Holland toward electronics and synthesis during the end of that decade. Upon returning home, he embarked on a stunning body of work, stretching over the coming decades. The composer’s works in these fields are a marvel - standing with the best of their era, finding a great deal of common ground with contemporary gestures emerging from Groupe de Recherches Musicales, and other studios across the globe - a largely overlooked missing link.

These are radical heights, where technology meets creative genius - grounded and mirroring the sounds and structures found in the world around and beyond. The musicality of an industrialized modern world, filtered through a singular mind. Electric, Rune Grammofon’s latest release, part of long legacy celebrating the radical sounds of its country’s many visions of the avant-garde, draws together many of Nordheim’s most iconic and hard to find works - Solitaire, Pace, Warszawa, Polypoly, and Colorazione. Met with resounding critical praise when it first appeared as a CD in 1998. Stunning in every way, in the composer’s hands immersive worlds come into focus, laden with surprise. Textures and tones flirt, plumbing unknown depths, captured voices drift in and out of view - wondrous cultures in sound.

A much needed addition to reappraisal of the history of avant-garde practice and and our broad vision and understanding of electronic music - its history and contemporary possibilities, Electric is unquestionably among the most important releases to come to light this year. Beautifully packaged limited edition of 500 copies, presented with the love for which Rune Grammofon has become known. Don’t sleep, this one won’t be around long.