Preview: A Vibrant Struggle – Between The Woods And Frozen Lake

The Bjerga/Iversen – staplerfahrer connection dates back to 2003. In that year staplerfahrer released his first works via Iversen’s “TIBProd.” label and participated in a remix project based on Iversen’s work. Later on, in February of 2006, Bjerga/Iversen came over to tour the Netherlands and played shows in Den Haag, Tilburg and Amsterdam. Staplerfahrer joined in on some of these gigs and visited Norway in September of that year, to play a Bjerga/Iversen curated program at the Stavanger NuMusic festival. Finally in 2007 the three came up with the idea to join forces in electro acoustic free improv outfit “A Vibrant Struggle”.

As weekly sessions weren’t the best option, the three decided to plan a long weekend session during the fall of 2007, in a cabin up in the mountains of Norway. Fueled by öl and a bit too much greasy fast food, they started to record tape after tape in the eerie silence of an abandoned ski resort. With their equipment scattered all over the cabin’s wooden floors and each one of them taking their place in one corner of the living room, the 4-track started recording while the stove was eating away it’s given logs and time passed by. Long days and long nights delivered a stack of tapes with blissful drones, crackling/clanging electro-acoustics, wood thumping and the occasional guitar picking.

“The Molten Snow Tapes”, as these outtakes of the sessions have been named, saw their release on some fine labels from across the globe. This one on Moving Furniture Records is the tenth release in the series. Earlier ones where published by The House of Alchemy (USA), 2:00AM Tapes (USA), 905 Tapes (USA), Small Doses (USA), Gold Soundz (NO), Dim Records (NL) and Bum Tapes (GB).