“The Svalbard Suite” is the 6th album by the electro-acoustic duo Blind Cave Salamander of Paul Beauchamp and Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo (Larsen, ( r ), Almagest!).
It is the result of a residency in Longyearbyen, Svalbard following two previous trips to Svalbard and it’s meant as a sonic socio-ecological exploration of the above mentioned archipelago in the Arctic Ocean and it is part of a wider project in collaboration with the Torino based theatre company Il Mutamento Zona Castalia, videomaker Omar Bovenzi and visual/performing artist Gianni Colosimo also featuring a documentary, a short movie and a theatre piece, inspired by and focusing on the stunning geography and peculiarities of this territory at 12 degrees latitude from the North Pole where humans are outnumbered by polar bears, where the plant seeds from all over the world are stored under the permafrost, where there are no armies and where you cannot be buried; also one of the areas on Earth most affected by global warming.
The album, engineered and mixed by Paul Beauchamp and mastered by James Plotkin, is based on field recordings made on location, treated and enriched by the musical textures by Paul Beauchamp and Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo and contributions by American experimental band Xiu Xiu and Longyearbyen’s miners choir Store Norske Mandskor in addition to that of Blind Cave Salamander’s honorary member, cello and electronics player and composer, Julia Kent and comes along with the “Svalbard, the land where nobody dies”, soundtrack by Fabrizio & Paul including all the additional materials specifically written and recorded to accompany both Omar Bovenzi’s short movies and Zona Castalia’s theatre piece. “The Svalbard Suite” has been released on CD and LP format by Hypershape Records with art direction by Giorgio Salmoiraghi.
Previous Blind Cave Salamander collaborations featured Paul Wallfisch (Swans, Love & Rockets, Little Annie), Jochen Arbeit (Einstuerzende Neubauten, Automat, Die Haut), Nurse With Wound, Gordon Sharp (Cindytalk, This Mortal Coil).
BLIND CAVE SALAMANDER “The Svalbard Suite”
a sonic socio-ecological exploration of the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean
Music written and performed by Paul Beauchamp & Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo: synthesizers, guitars, treatments
with
Xiu Xiu: beats
Julia Kent: cello and electronics
Store Norske Mandskor: “Halvan Går” (traditional)
Voices by: Herdis Lien, Tove Eide, Benjamin Vidmar, Åsmund Asdal, Angelo Viola
Field recordings by Paul Beauchamp, Angela Seo, Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo at Spitsbergen, Svalbard
Recorded and mixed by Paul Beauchamp at O.F.F. Studio Torino, Italy
Mastered by James Plotkin
Artworks by Giorgio Salmoiraghi