Wednesday 23. April 2025, Håkon Thelin and Gisle Nataas released the album “Architecture as instrument | Fehn” at Sentralen in Oslo. The record company Case Records is releasing the album. We have gone for a gatefold cover that is beautifully designed by Erik Johan Worsøe Eriksen, Torleif Kvinnesland has taken the photos, the LP is produced with 180 gram vinyl by T-Time Vinyl Plant in Norway and the album has turned out super cool. Ando Woltmann has written the text “Now, what if walls actually could talk?”. The LP is super exclusive, there are only 100 copies, all numbered!
Buy the album directly from Tiger Records or Big Dipper
Project: Album release. Title: «Architecture as Instrument | Fehn». Duration: 37 minutter. Artist: Gisle Nataas and Håkon Thelin. Date: April 2025.
Gisle and Håkon have previously collaborated during the Ultima festival in 2023, but this is the first time they have collaborated on an album. This record presents two distinct compositions derived from field recordings captured within two architectural projects by Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn (1924-2009):
Fehn/Gyldendalhuset (2007) and Fehn/Storhamarlåven (1973).
Each composition immerses the listener in the unique acoustic landscapes of Fehn’s architecture. The pieces feature an array of sounds, including glass, concrete floors, staircases, railings, and exhibition display cases in metal, concrete, and wood vibrating, resonating, and being played. Footsteps, architects conversing, doors unlocking and creaking, an elevator opening, and birds nesting under the roof of the Hedmark Museum all contribute to the sonic tapestry. Every sound in these works originates from field recordings taken within the architectural spaces themselves.
A little about what has been written about the album “Architecture as instrument | Fehn”:
How does a building sound? Architect, sound artist and composer Gisle Nataas is researching this. He makes field recordings around famous buildings and puts them together into a composition. In this way, he can “play the house”. Nataas brings Håkon Thelin with him on an overtone-rich double bass that forms an organic counterpoint to the concrete sound. Stylistically, the compositions are somewhere close to ambient. I also get associations with Luc Ferrari and his Presque rien pieces from the 1970s. It’s exciting… sound art? Sound painting? Sound landscape? Art sound? Art music? Music? I don’t quite know what to call it. It touches on some deep philosophical questions about where the boundaries of music are. I like both the concept and the compositions. Because Nataas creates a type of sound art that makes you stop and become more aware of what you have in your immediate surroundings. The cover is gorgeous, and the vinyl is incredibly elaborate. Ola Nordal- music journalist
I love being challenged. I love being taken to places I’ve never been before. Gisle Nataas and Håkon Thelin do all this with inspiration from the icon Sverre Fehn’s architecture.
Here, architecture as an instrument is conveyed in vinyl format and I have become the happy owner of copy number 64. I am fascinated by the music, the way Nataas and Thelin have thought about it and the way I believe Fehn has gone about creating the space. “Architecture as an instrument” has of course become completely different from anything else that has ever touched my sensory apparatus. I really enjoy that. Tor Hammerø – music journalist
