Octantrion will unveil their new album “II” on their release October 22, 2021 on Quart de Lune / UVM Distribution.
This new work will be presented live on stage on Thursday February 3, 2022 at the Studio de L’Ermitage (Paris).
Octantrion‘s recording history began in 2014 with the eponymous album. This first opus set in stone pieces was made for and by the stage. Following the success of this self-produced album which reached the top of album sales for a while after the band appeared on France 2 (in June 2015, Jean-François Zygel’s programme La Boîte à Musique devoted quite a lot of time to the duet and their emblematic instrument, the nyckelharpa) among others, a remastered and extended edition called 8 including 4 new pieces was released in 2018 by Quart de lune / UVM.
The album II (Quart de Lune/ UVM) was conceived in a complete different manner. The theme of the raven was chosen as a symbol of pagan Nordic / Viking cultures and to serve as common thread for this new opus that holds 15 songs among which are 10 original compositions and 5 rearranged traditional Swedish and Icelandic tunes.
While the album Octantrion and its variation 8 were showcasing the timbres of the extraordinary instruments played by Eleonore Billy (Swedish nyckelharpa, Norwegian hardingfele) and Gaedic Chambrier (Nordic bass cittern, mandocello, harp-guitar), with a light double bass accompaniment by Jean-Philippe Viret (winner of a victory for music in 2011 and a victory for Jazz in 2020) as well as by some percussions, much denser orchestrations can be found in the album II. Six other musicians took part in the album, and voices and singing can be heard in four pieces.
After being acknowledged by great Scandinavian musicians and becoming the French reference of North-inspired music with Octantrion/ 8, the duo devised and produced the album II so as to make it more accessible to the general public. The theme of the raven was chosen as a symbol of pagan Nordic/ Viking cultures and to serve as common thread for the new opus. It holds 15 songs among which are 10 original compositions and 5 rearranged traditional Swedish and Icelandic tunes. Its melodies tick over in your mind and the pieces can be danced on and hummed, and take the listener on an escape journey to a dreamt North, a land of legends.
