Lumen Drones - Umbra (2019)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 242 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 135 Mb | Scans included | 00:37:05
Jazz Rock, Fusion, Modern Creative | Label: Hubro
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 242 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 135 Mb | Scans included | 00:37:05
Jazz Rock, Fusion, Modern Creative | Label: Hubro
The appearance of the second album by Lumen Drones, ‘Umbra’, carries the status of a major event. Coming fully five years after the group’s startling, self-titled debut recording – released, in late 2015, on ECM Records – the long-awaited follow-up marks a significant leap forward. No less experimental than its predecessor, and certainly no less ‘electric’, yet in many ways a deeper and more profound expression of the trio’s interests, ‘Umbra’ is probably some sort of masterpiece.Tracklist:
Over nine tracks varying from two to six minutes in length, Nils Økland (fiddles), Per Steinar Lie (guitars) and Ørjan Haaland (drums) create a completely convincing musical world where the conventional boundaries separating different styles seem to disappear. Exactly what type of music this might be, and where it might come from, ceases to matter once one is engaged in the act of listening. Each tune has a distinct identity of its own, and imprints itself on the mind very easily, as does the aesthetic unity of the album as a whole. Indeed, ‘Umbra’ proves compulsively listenable at whatever level you choose, and repays close attention and repeated exposure.
It also takes us far beyond the initial, shock-effect response to the first album, and the perceived incongruity of a musician schooled in folk and classical music collaborating with members of an experimental rock band, the guitarist and drummer from the influential post-rock band The Low Frequency in Stereo. On ‘Umbra’, everything fits perfectly. While a convenient image for Lumen Drones could be that of a lone voice (Økland’s Hardanger fiddle) crying out in the forest, where it’s menaced by the jagged shapes of malevolent trees (Per Steinar Lie’s buzzsaw guitar and Ørjan Haaland’s rumbling drums), the truth is much less clear-cut. Økland’s ‘voice’ can be as wild and as frenzied as either of his bandmates’, while they are as capable as Økland of great delicacy and restraint.
Rather, the strength of Lumen Drones seems to lie in the way the roles of the individuals are made to work within the demands of the ensemble, and in cooperation with each other. What is often most notable about ‘Umbra’ is the very openness of each piece, and the lack of any set pattern as to how it wiill be approached. The reductive stereotype that could be applied to the band – a sort of beauty and the beast myth of rustic folk musician meets hard-core post-rockers – is hardly borne out by the reality, either. Like Nils Økland (who once performed in a new wave rock band, Lover & Tigre), Per Steinar Lie and and Ørjan Haaland are experienced improvising musicians who are used to playing in a variety of contexts within the intensely varied Norwegian experimental scene. Again like Økland, who spends as much time in the avant-garde as he does in whatever ‘folk’ might mean these days, they have deep hinterland: The Low Frequency in Stereo has been together for twenty years, and were nominated for a Spellemansprisen (the Norwegian ‘Grammy’) in 2012, in the ‘pop’ category. The Nils Økland Band’s ‘Lysning’ (also on Hubro) was nominated in the ‘open’ category in 2018, and won. Both sets of artists are acclaimed internationally as well as within Norway,
The musical material and influences that the three principals bring to the table are also very compatible, just as the pentatonic scales and drone-like sympathetic strings of the Hardanger fiddle sound entirely at home with much contemporary instrumental music, whether jazz, experimental rock or classical composition. But if you listen to it carefully, ‘Umbra’ doesn’t really sound like anyone else. We can move from a solo fiddle prelude played as delicately as a baroque chaconne, to a stomping, motorik-beat rocker and then to a keening, wailing, feedback-heavy dirge, and everything seems all of a piece. There might be a bit of Sonic Youth in there, along with Joy Division, John Cale, Arvo Pärt, Dick Dale, Lamonte Young, Paganini, and, well, everyone they have ever listened to, but it doesn’t really intrude: Lumen Drones play Lumen Drones music.
There’s also a very satisfying sense of design to ‘Umbra’, both on the micro level represented by the span of each separate track, and the macro level of the album as a whole. From the hypnotic opening prelude of ‘Inngang’, with Økland’s fiddle heard at first indistinctly against what turns out to be the burbling atmospherics provided by burring guitar strings, to the absolutely epic final two pieces, ‘Etnir’ and ‘Under djupet’, where the music seems poised in a perfect form of ecstatic stasis, as if could continue forever, ‘Umbra’ casts a truly powerful spell. By the end, one is conscious not of three separate voices, or an opposition between the acoustic and the electric, but rather of one, powerful aesthetic unity. Then you start the album all over again.
1. Inngang (02:17)
2. Glør (02:58)
3. Droneslag (06:06)
4. Gorrlaus slått (04:44)
5. Umbra (03:31)
6. Avalanche in A minor (04:23)
7. Speil (02:04)
8. Etnir (06:47)
9. Under djupet (04:10)
Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 4 from 7. December 2014
EAC extraction logfile from 17. January 2020, 18:49
Lumen Drones / Umbra
Used drive : ATAPI iHAS124 F Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 896 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\flac-1.3.2-win\win64\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=ripped by vp_sunset" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 2:17.74 | 0 | 10348
2 | 2:17.74 | 2:58.69 | 10349 | 23767
3 | 5:16.68 | 6:06.32 | 23768 | 51249
4 | 11:23.25 | 4:44.08 | 51250 | 72557
5 | 16:07.33 | 3:31.25 | 72558 | 88407
6 | 19:38.58 | 4:23.16 | 88408 | 108148
7 | 24:01.74 | 2:04.50 | 108149 | 117498
8 | 26:06.49 | 6:47.58 | 117499 | 148081
9 | 32:54.32 | 4:11.28 | 148082 | 166934
Track 1
Filename C:\_EAC\01. Inngang.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 56.6 %
Extraction speed 4.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 288AD68E
Copy CRC 288AD68E
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [73BC8AF2] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename C:\_EAC\02. Glør.wav
Peak level 90.7 %
Extraction speed 4.2 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 0F7FE15E
Copy CRC 0F7FE15E
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3B8F4F6C] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename C:\_EAC\03. Droneslag.wav
Peak level 96.5 %
Extraction speed 6.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 31A6E9E4
Copy CRC 31A6E9E4
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [8C48CFCE] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename C:\_EAC\04. Gorrlaus slått.wav
Peak level 96.5 %
Extraction speed 6.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC E3DDAB0A
Copy CRC E3DDAB0A
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [018886B8] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename C:\_EAC\05. Umbra.wav
Peak level 96.4 %
Extraction speed 6.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 15AE8CCD
Copy CRC 15AE8CCD
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3F39D7D3] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename C:\_EAC\06. Avalance in A minor.wav
Peak level 97.2 %
Extraction speed 7.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 41524A69
Copy CRC 41524A69
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [48BE194E] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 7
Filename C:\_EAC\07. Speil.wav
Peak level 49.3 %
Extraction speed 6.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC BDD54F3D
Copy CRC BDD54F3D
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3747BE68] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 8
Filename C:\_EAC\08. Etnir.wav
Peak level 96.4 %
Extraction speed 8.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC CDBFBEB2
Copy CRC CDBFBEB2
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [0F5D35EA] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 9
Filename C:\_EAC\09. Under djupet.wav
Peak level 96.4 %
Extraction speed 8.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 770C3554
Copy CRC 770C3554
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [BF24C175] (AR v2)
Copy OK
All tracks accurately ripped
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.4
[CTDB TOCID: CX2r2s.ZTj72CRjlTg.LVJLXFfs-] disk not present in database
Submit result: CX2r2s.ZTj72CRjlTg.LVJLXFfs- has been uploaded
==== Log checksum 3CF4E938FBE7D6EF262730BBC7CE484A3CD2525270006FBC2394F7635383F6C1 ====
EAC extraction logfile from 17. January 2020, 18:49
Lumen Drones / Umbra
Used drive : ATAPI iHAS124 F Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 896 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\flac-1.3.2-win\win64\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=ripped by vp_sunset" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 2:17.74 | 0 | 10348
2 | 2:17.74 | 2:58.69 | 10349 | 23767
3 | 5:16.68 | 6:06.32 | 23768 | 51249
4 | 11:23.25 | 4:44.08 | 51250 | 72557
5 | 16:07.33 | 3:31.25 | 72558 | 88407
6 | 19:38.58 | 4:23.16 | 88408 | 108148
7 | 24:01.74 | 2:04.50 | 108149 | 117498
8 | 26:06.49 | 6:47.58 | 117499 | 148081
9 | 32:54.32 | 4:11.28 | 148082 | 166934
Track 1
Filename C:\_EAC\01. Inngang.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 56.6 %
Extraction speed 4.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 288AD68E
Copy CRC 288AD68E
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [73BC8AF2] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename C:\_EAC\02. Glør.wav
Peak level 90.7 %
Extraction speed 4.2 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 0F7FE15E
Copy CRC 0F7FE15E
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3B8F4F6C] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename C:\_EAC\03. Droneslag.wav
Peak level 96.5 %
Extraction speed 6.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 31A6E9E4
Copy CRC 31A6E9E4
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [8C48CFCE] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename C:\_EAC\04. Gorrlaus slått.wav
Peak level 96.5 %
Extraction speed 6.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC E3DDAB0A
Copy CRC E3DDAB0A
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [018886B8] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename C:\_EAC\05. Umbra.wav
Peak level 96.4 %
Extraction speed 6.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 15AE8CCD
Copy CRC 15AE8CCD
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3F39D7D3] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename C:\_EAC\06. Avalance in A minor.wav
Peak level 97.2 %
Extraction speed 7.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 41524A69
Copy CRC 41524A69
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [48BE194E] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 7
Filename C:\_EAC\07. Speil.wav
Peak level 49.3 %
Extraction speed 6.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC BDD54F3D
Copy CRC BDD54F3D
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3747BE68] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 8
Filename C:\_EAC\08. Etnir.wav
Peak level 96.4 %
Extraction speed 8.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC CDBFBEB2
Copy CRC CDBFBEB2
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [0F5D35EA] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 9
Filename C:\_EAC\09. Under djupet.wav
Peak level 96.4 %
Extraction speed 8.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 770C3554
Copy CRC 770C3554
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [BF24C175] (AR v2)
Copy OK
All tracks accurately ripped
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.4
[CTDB TOCID: CX2r2s.ZTj72CRjlTg.LVJLXFfs-] disk not present in database
Submit result: CX2r2s.ZTj72CRjlTg.LVJLXFfs- has been uploaded
==== Log checksum 3CF4E938FBE7D6EF262730BBC7CE484A3CD2525270006FBC2394F7635383F6C1 ====
Thanks to the Original ripper !