“Ingen nåde” was released on Friday, and in the new year there will be 1-2 concerts where Åge Aleksandersen plays the songs, which he will also take with him on the Sambandet tour – then in band format. Photo: Handout NTB culture
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Shows / rock
Published:
2021
Record label:
Solregn / Warner Music
«Åge at its most vulnerable.»
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ALBUM: The pandemic has done a lot with the way we work, whether we have met colleagues at Teams or sat alone and worked. Åge Aleksandersen (72) has stayed in his tower in Trondheim and written, learned to play many new instruments (including recorder!) And recorded nine new songs, two of them in two versions.
With a few exceptions, all instruments are played by Åge, with some guests on vocals. He has also produced himself. He saw no reason to interfere with anyone else. After all, it was a pandemic.
Seven years
It is a full seven years since Åge & Sambandet released a studio album, “Sukker og salt”, and 15 years since the previous album without his regular band (“Snöharpan” with lyrics by Swedish Dan Andersson). There will be a big tour next year and maybe even a new album with Sambandet, but the last two years for him and many other musicians it has been about filling the time with something positive and constructive.
– You must also die, so this is a song about old age and death
The song for the wife
It is fervor that rests over “No mercy”, perhaps to emphasize the very special thing about almost two years in lockdown. It’s a subdued, but not stripped down album.
Textually, it alternates between the banal, the sweet and the downright honest. All this is united in the album’s best note, the country song «Sang te dæ». In 1979, Åge wrote “Skin sola” to his wife Torill. They still stick together, and here it gets its “sequel”:
‘Of all that has happened to me
are you all that is good
A smile through the tears
with the back straight
through the noise of the gossip
A quiet queen in the noise of rejoicing
held steady in my arm »
“Clumsy”
Here we hear Åge at his most vulnerable, just like in the opening “No mercy” – with vocal help by an Erlend Ropstad at his most fragile. It has a serious backdrop, about abuse in the church, «The pitiful castle of double standards». Another highlight is the quiet «Every grain of sand and every straw», a remake of Bob Dylan’s “Every Grain Of Sand”, with Norwegian lyrics by Håvard Rem, from Åge’s album “Fredløs – Dylan på norsk” from 1997.
But not Everyone the lyrics are equally successful. There is no major objection, however “The bench”, which has also been recorded in both a stripped-down version and one with his daughter Line Sofie Aleksandersen, guitarist Gunnar Pedersen and the Trondheim soloists, is marred by a slightly “clumsy” sentence structure here and there and does not sound so good. “Hey you”, also the one in two versions (the last with the group Violet Road) becomes more than banal and is a small parenthesis in the catalog, while “You will never be mine” is a respectful translation of Johnny Cash ” I Still Miss Someone ‘.
Boney M
«Søndagsmorra i Volda» is a typical tour song about sitting old and lonely at hotel breakfast number 7000 and longing for home. Which by the way rhymes with Boney M …
«5 minutes in 12» is a song for the mean hop, that is, most of us. IN «Janus» he describes himself as “an old fool with tears on his cheeks with the threat of a new and better spring”. But he is not older than he wants to make a little noise when he embarks on a trip with Sambandet next year, with new hotel breakfasts. Maybe some of the new songs will be included as well. He is currently embarking on an autumn tour with Line Sofie Aleksandersen, Gunnar Pedersen and the Trondheim soloists.
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