Havard Skaset / Stale Liavik Solberg - Truck Rural [Conradsound 336]

Released via the Oslo-based Conradsound label on January 23rd, 2k26 is "Truck Rural", the first ever full on collaborational album by Havard Skaset and Stale Liavik Solberg who are catering a set of seven compositions over the course of roughly 40 minutes, bringing forth a fully acoustic and unprocessed dialogue of acoustic guitar, drums and various percussive elements. Opening with "Eternal Espa" the duo sets the tone for this improvisational album affair with a sharp, twangy and metallic plucked quasi-guitar motif regularly falling to bits whilst being accompanied by wildly scattered percussions before taking a sudden turn towards ruminant, introspective strumming and experimental percussive noises provided by what in part seem to be found everyday objects probably including, even though this might be purely speculative, pots and cutlery whereas pieces like "Intentional Illseng" provide catchy, somewhat even hippie'esque, yet also slightly Blues-infused sequences and tweaked, Psychedelia-adjacent harmonics alongside a whirlwind of drum rolls and fever'ish, hallucinogenic arhythmatics. Furthermore "Lonesome Løten" weighs in an almost rural and minimalist angle on instrumental Americana x Blues abstractions in its first half and therefore might be our favorite cut on this album whereas "Relaxing In Romedal" builds up to a massive multilayered acoustic crescendo which is quite the opposite of relaxing tbh, just to lay out a rough idea on what's to expect from this quite interesting and unusual affair in terms of Improvised Music x Free Improv. Also an album to watch out for if you've got a thing for alliterations grammatically.

Album artwork on Instagram!