Too Late?
We are all here on Earth together. This is a collective Pan-Terrestrial experience. Still Time is the newest album from Sverre Knut Johansen, this time primarily focused on responding to the extinction of animals, man-made climate change, as well as the race against time to turn this all around.
Maybe the album’s story is universal and speaks to the world at large. Still Time celebrates humans and nature, very much including animals. The album’s visualization takes place in Africa, in the deserts of Namibia where traditional difficult desert conditions have recently become even more extreme.
The music of Johansen contains rich harmonic content and strong melodic elements that have become core to his legend. For the album Still Time, he has added a new percussive dimension to the sound of Space Center Music Productions at Sandane, Norway. The Elephant imitating sounds and Flamingo imitating sounds come from the PROPHET X hybrid synth. Also what is new is a unique way of experimenting with blending international voices. Music meets nature to talk about loving the Earth.
Within the Kalahari region, life has always been a struggle but in the desert recently the heat all over the world has accordingly been increasing even more. The amazing photographs connect directly to the music, taken by Solly Levi in nature reserves including The Etosha National Park, Namib Naukluft National Park, the Masai Mara National Reserve in Namibia and also some photos from Kenya.
Solly Levi is a Brighton based wildlife photographer born and raised in the Congo. From his website he says, “When I think of photography I think of having fun and trying to transmit a story. I started as a hobby photographer but now have made it a full time job. I am always exploring new places for new content throughout the year. I am now running photo workshops in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.”
As the constant listener, I like what I am hearing right now, and I have even more to think about. The voices are anonymous and therefore ultimately could represent the sound of our people collectively, to a hypothetical cosmic visitor. Perhaps this is how the whole of humanity might sound in general. Still Time suggests that humans have seen the extinction of many unique animals, and asks, what can we do about it? The music is crafted with love for all animals on this planet, they are all heroes and represent the purity of this Earth.
Instead of screaming out, Johansen uses ethnic human voices for warning us about disasters and what we surround ourselves with which could possibly continue to cause more climate change. The composer confides, “One of the things I did on most of the songs was to find voices that could fit the mood and intensity of the music. This took a lot of time and required patience and a lot of editing… The human voices in the music are the warning siren for our climate catastrophes. Most of the voices are coming from various ethnic natives all over the world.”
Certain sounds, like birds and whales, are attractive for sound sculpting, but I have no idea as to what the voices are saying, and I do not know who the vocalists are. These pre-recorded voices are used as an instrument by the composer to craft the work. This feeling of anonymity is unusual because we as humans naturally want to know who is singing. The vocalists that I hear on Still Time are very skilled and have much to offer, they all sound extraordinarily clear and energetic, otherwise they probably would not have been selected for inclusion in the project by the composer.
The music reflects the mood in the specifically selected pictures. Many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes already set in motion such as continued sea level rise are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years. The title Still Time means that there is time remaining to make a significant difference in the world. Perhaps we can learn from slowing down the pace of climate change and protecting our planet for future generations. We should always remember that this planet is our gift to our own children, and thus make sure that everything goes well. Scientists are observing changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system.
“As a producer and composer it is always hard work,” says Johansen, “but sometimes you get lucky putting together elements that are beyond what you expected. In that moment you realize that you have created something unique and this is not happening a lot, but sometimes it does.” All of this beautiful and emotional sound was written, recorded and produced by Sverre Knut Johansen at his Music Space Center in Norway. The voices are what they are, they were selected for compositional purposes, the voice is an expressive wonderment, here serving the composer’s process, not as words but as tones. The words could be a prayer or something deeply personal. The interpretation of the listener contributes to this equation, always adding more value. This is the power of the mind and the imagination. As Johansen recently said, “using the same tools later will never give the same results, it is all about diving into yourself in a state beyond this world. Only then can you create moments of treasures.”
As we open, the feeling is solemn and dark, deeply gothic, slow and gloomy. Massive extinction is clearly a heavy topic. There are curly antlers on a black and white Bontebok, facing ahead looking back at us, one single figure alone, standing in desert’s sandy hills with sparse tall grasses. I imagine that this is sunset at the Kalahari desert, on the edge of a featureless undulating sand covered plain that goes on forever. The track “Massive Extinction” (9:17), makes an instrumental statement and then stops and pauses, returning with a female singer. Soon we are transported into the deep buzzing and rumbling tones of mass destruction. The singer continues calmly and earnestly, while everything is coming apart, with the heavy buzzing of the destruction sounds while she sings her compassionate song. We helplessly watch the distant huge dust cloud and winds, maybe this the end of the world. Then the vocalist again sings her message, dark, slow, somber, and even sentimental at times. There is another quiet pause. Now the woodwind electronics take up the sad story, asking what is left now?
The implied answer to that question suggests that there is some time remaining, all is not lost. With the picture that is the same as the album cover, the wise old savanna cat, “Still Time (Saving Our Planet)” (5:17) offers a hint of percussion and no beat yet, but eventually there is a surprise followed by a calm and eventually haunting female voices singing ethereal drones. All around the various sounds rustling and exploring, various instruments rebuilding the lush wilderness, and already a calm repairing and healing has returned. Now the big booming drums are here and they rumble with power. The forest continues to calmly knit itself back somehow and the listener dreams of light and hope, a sense of life forever with suggestions of singing and wooden clacking.
It is believed that the natural mineral pan in Etosha National Park was first formed over 100 millions years ago. The Etosha Pan is a vast, bare, open expanse of shimmering green and white that covers around 4,800Km and is visible from space. A pan is a vast hollow in the ground in which water may collect. What remains is usually a vast wasteland crusty with salt deposits from the times that the water has dried up completely. The picture shows a big rhinoceros coming right at us. The land is flat or maybe like surf going on forever but it is salt and not foam that makes whitecaps out there, “Rhinoceros On Large Salt Pan” (6:45). Surprisingly, for being about a big animal this is very light and fluttery with lots of sunny colors, the harp is the main instrument, the beat is easy and playful, very relaxing, and there are other synthetic string instruments that seem to evolve, from a harp into a guitar, then perhaps a lute or an oud, joined by some woodwinds. Things change and there are vocals calling. The feeling is very easy and relaxing out in nature using the imagination. Now there is another guitar, perhaps harps and more instruments, very warm and flowing, the harps all weave a calming trance, repeating the elegant phrases over and over endlessly, as if the desert is a spirit garden.
Walvis Bay Wetlands and the Golden Flamingo Lake are located in one of the most important coastal wetlands of southern Africa. Over 150,000 migrant birds spend the summer months in Walvis Bay and non-breeding palearctic, and intra-African species dominate. Here on the surface of the water flamencos take flight as the thunderhead looms with a silver edge from the glare of the sun, disappearing behind the gigantic dark cloud. The birds are running and flapping as they go up into the air, splashing, “Storm Is Coming (At Walvis Bay)” (9:53). I hear rushing air, chaos, a bass beat, all the elements coming together to make a huge storm, blending the sound of wind coming from a long distance and then woodwinds and someone singing, a young man sings strange calm words in his language. After some moments of calm the storm begins, thunder and electronic birds scattering, then it calms and suddenly the beat kicks in and takes over, complex drum patterns with a man singing a duet with a woman, others join in as the beat takes us through the storm. The percussion and the use of voices are a new dimension for Johansen, this percussion performance sounds like real drums, engaging and polyrhythmic.
The next picture is of white clouds above one giraffe, a single giraffe standing facing ahead with the neck turned behind to look at us. There are big puffy sunny blue sky clouds up above and strange glare like a mist down below where the giraffe is standing, “White Clouds Above Giraffe” (8:07), I hear ringing rattles and elements of a melody begin and then pause to return again and again, until the beat comes in, running at full speed on sure footed electronics while the sky goes forever and we stand on the Earth looking up. Here the sun-baked arid grasslands go on forever with the wind blowing and the sun streaming down, dry hot beams.
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Next, some very strange old dry dead tree shapes stick up abruptly in the empty sand, sad. Huge echoes reverberate at times, with clicking and rattling, the bass hums in a sinister light, the orchestra emerges and layers of endorheic entropy are unfolding. “Dead Vlei — The Most Beautiful Dead Place On Earth” (6:36), we are descending step by step into a deadly dark bottomless below with dismal tones of doom and there is someone singing up there somewhere.
“Oryx In Yellow Light” (6:10) features wind instruments blowing dryly and harshly, and I think I hear walking sounds in the grasslands scratching and crunching step by step while the flutes circle above swooping playfully and the woodwinds emerge to cavort and frolic. Here the instruments create a strange open haunted landscape, with rustling and the sound made by carrying a microphone into a field, lots of brush with woodwinds and the sea crashing on the beach, in the distance birds thousands of birds all flocking together and calling, all this is overall quiet and delicate, like odd shadows and moving water. The oryx has unusually long straight horns and the flute is strong at first, the woodwinds come out to play and I hear footsteps in the cave. There is some water, some thunder, now it is raining but just for a moment, it is quiet and ends by the water again.
This is where things get more intense, huge creatures are walking in a cluster at a steady pace and change is here. The feeling is big and forceful, raw, elemental forces of nature through its intense orchestration and driving rhythms, employing contrasting dynamics to evoke a wide range of emotions. There is a group of elephants coming directly at us, we are facing a group of possibly seven and the dusty wind is swirling in the glaring heat of the sun, “The Desert Elephants Of Namibia” (4:06). The pachyderms are so big, somehow they move quickly but are huge, the angular accent tones continue steadily, beasts calling in a primitive staggering tempo, a PROPHET X hybrid synth forms the elephant voices, a caravan of restless steady progress, on and on the beasts walk.
Meanwhile, the birds are calm and standing in the flat silent surface of the water, “The Golden Flamingo Lake” (9:14), with strings and the woodwinds also some electronic choral effects. The birds are calm and communicative, the form holds while the elements shift and change, it is peaceful here on the lake, with lots of interesting textures and underwater electronics. By the end of the track I realize that the harp has sustained us all during the entire lake journey, while I was listening to the birds.
The final picture is “A Cheetah’s Realm (At The Masai Mara National Reserve)” (7:21), the electronic forces emerge just above the constant running beat, and this is the jam. I love a driving bass with the percussion sounds and the melody works inside while odd audio samples work their way along coming and going, sometimes returning, with rapid upper tones and sinister lower tones. Now the drums kick in, building slowly into something efficient, fast, and lethal, but with a mother animal’s loving judgment, and we are all running through the savanna grasslands at a fast pace, the bass brings it home. We are moving at an extraordinary speed, feeling each step and bump as the footing offers infinite variations, as we run there are different textures and elements or creatures. Soon things quiet down and then change while the drums keep the running feeling strong.
As a whole, the statement is important, we all share the Earth and we could do a better job with ensuring our progeny will have something wonderful to enjoy, hopefully for centuries after we are gone. The music covers quite a bit of range and connects to some extreme physical territory, the images are the perfect catalyst to mix the feelings with specific physical situations. The voices express human passion. The percussion adds more colors to the symphonics in new ways here.
“I often compare composing music like a painter who fills the blank canvas coats, adding new layers and colors, corrects, adding more layers that slowly visualize an image. Finally we see the landscape appear.”
Johansen makes music that is both lyrical and rhythmic, often with elements of classical and electronic ambient music genres. His first album was released in 1994 and was produced by Erik Wøllo on the Norwegian label Origo Sound. In 1999, he released The Source of Energy, eventually followed by Planets in 2012. He began distributing his music label for download and streaming in 2013 on his own as Origin Music. Still Time is Johansen’s seventh release on the Spotted Peccary Music label, his previous releases are Metahuman (2022), Dreams Beyond (2020), Precambrian (2019), The Vast Expanse (2018), Secret Space Program (2017), and Earth From Above (2016). “Creating music is much based on moods and a quest to find something undetected. New roads leading to something spiritual and inexplicable. Finding peace in a quiet place. Rhythmic elements coasting to a target. Undiscovered landscape and new unknown worlds. Everything is out there…”
Tracks
1 Massive Extinction 09:17
2 Still Time (Saving Our Planet) 05:17
3 Rhinoceros On Large Salt Pan 06:45
4 Storm Is Coming (At Walvis Bay) 09:53
5 White Clouds Above Giraffe 08:07
6 Dead Vlei — The Most Beautiful Dead Place On Earth 06:36
7 Oryx In Yellow Light 06:10
8 The Desert Elephants Of Namibia 04:06
9 The Golden Flamingo Lake 09:14
10 A Cheetah’s Realm (At The Masai Mara National Reserve) 07:21
Links
Stream from the platform of your choice: https://orcd.co/still-time
Spotted Peccary https://spottedpeccary.com/shop/still-time/
Spotted Peccary Artist
https://spottedpeccary.com/artists/sverre-knut-johansen/
Bandcamp
https://sverreknutjohansen-spm.bandcamp.com/album/still-time
Photographer Solly Levi https://www.sollylevi.com/
