This is one of the more intense rollercoaster rides I’ve ever listened to. Ratkje is from Norway and has been part of the Scandinavian and European improv scene for a while, including her great all female improv group SPUNK. This is her first solo record and it’s ALL her VOICE. She sings, screams, talks, babbles, makes sounds, makes kid voices, ponders, and duets with herself all in English and Norwegian. There are so many moods and sounds from experimental to playful to angry and crazy. At times chaotic and others it’s serene and beautiful. Sometimes out like David Moss, other times playful and demented like Mike Patton, entire languages like Anna Homler, and unique delivery like Iva Bittova. Some of this was recorded while following her around in life and includes not only studio tracks but recordings from the Emmanuel Vigeland Mausoleum, a roof, two different basements, in an elevator, and a parking garage. There are some electronic manipulations of the vocals, slowing down, speeding up, singing with her self, some tracks to the point were words are not discernable and create an ambient electronic sound.


**1. Very quiet beginning and what sounds like almost glitch electronics shows up. There are some whispers and sped up spoken words that sound like a little girl.
2. Shorter and more out with vocal sounds more than words but some long drawn out singing in the background.
**3. Angular, harsh vocal sounds very much like David Moss. Improvised sounding, and percussive with no noticeable words. Full on harsh noise and screams (I mean spine tingling, crazy, serious in the I believe there is something wrong type screams). This quickly changes to a cute, playful set of sounds.
4. Short, noisy.
5. Long track with lots of changes that starts with beautiful vocals in what sounds like a tunnel. Lots of playing with the natural reverb and echo. A droning “ahh” gets taken over by some dark electronic sounds. Then a right turn into heavy breathing. Be prepared for some near silent parts in this track. Actually 1/3 of the way in it is silent. What sounds like a flock of birds or bugs starts creeping out of the silence. I love this track I’m just not sure how radio friendly it is.
**6. Dark with some manipulated quiet screeching and then wammo some screaming, into some vocal acrobatics. She then sings a cute tune over the top of the acrobatics. You can hear she is outside and might even be walking really fast. I think we have 3 or 4 of her at once at times.
**7. Minimal with lots of drones with reverb and echo. Then she starts speaking slowly over the top. She also starts singing in a beautiful jazz manner over the top of the both.
8. Some quiet droning and then, like the title implies it sounds like a couple of Chipmunks talking and eating.
**10. The title of this track is Acid and you know, it is a bit on the trippy side. A couple things going on at once, some speaking, some conversation, and some lip and mouth noises. Some only in the left or right channel. Great.
**11. Another long track that start out sounding like heavy machinery. This stops cold, she laughs, giggles and then screams bloody murder. I’m talking one of the scariest fucking screams you’ve ever heard. Sort of a demented scream and then she manipulates it to make it super noisy, like Merzbow type noise. This stops about 4:12 into the track and it goes silent. After about 30 seconds there are a couple loops of her singing/saying things. The track gets very quiet again and really there isn’t much after the 5:36 mark.
AMAZING!!! -mph