Tirill Mohn is a Norwegian Singer-songwriter based in Asker, near Oslo. A multi-instrumentalist , she is best known for her part in the formation of legendary Norwegian Progressive Rock band White Willow during the mid 1990s. Tirill played violin and classical guitar on the band’s debut Ignius Fatuus released in 1995. These reissues makes Tirill’s solo albums available outside Scandinavia and parts of Western Europe in CD edition for the first time.
Tales from Tranquil August Gardens was first released as A Dance with the Shadows on the small US indie label The Wild Places, sadly now long defunct following the death of label boss Michael Piper soon after the album was released. Tirill has given the album its originally planned title for this re-issue with bonus tracks, although both titles are apt. The album is an intense ride through various tones and colours, from the winter chill of opener “Nights are Colder” via the intense pain of album centerpiece “Vendela” to the happy, Mediterranean colours of “It Was Blue”.
Guests include:
Nils Einar Vinjor – guitars
Sylvia Erichsen – vocals
Ketil Vestrum Einarsen – flute
Sigrun Eng – cello
… is a silent album, yet it’s so intense that you can close your eyes and easily imagine the artist sitting next to you – maybe at a hidden place in the August Gardens – and playing her breathtakingly beautiful songs. The first eight tunes undoubtedly embody the sound of “Norwegian melancholy”. All songs are created with deep love and with seldom carefulness, thus it makes little sense to explain that Tirill plays some kind of easeful folk music if you don’t add how she and her gorgeously talented guest musicians present her songs. It’s indeed shadowy music, but in those shadows the listener’s imagination might travel upon so far unknown pathways well worth to discover. I lack the right words to describe the much more than fascinating character of her music, yet I can only give you the advice to accept Tirill’s invitation for this intimate meeting…
– Thor Wanzek
Nine and Fifty Swans is a musical journey into the poetry of W.B.Yeats. It was Tirill’s second solo album, originally released in 2011.
“W.B. Yeats’ poems are rooted in place and time but they sigh for eternity. The music on this cd, as warm and palpable as it is ethereal and evocative, complements them superbly. Unearthly and delicate, sensuous and vulnerable, Tirill’s voice glimmers on the margin between world and otherworld, as haunting and seductive to the ear as the sight of the girl he pursued forever after was to the eye of Wandering Aengus. It is a voice that calls us as if by name and brings almost within reach the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.” – Patrick Crotty
Um himinjǫður is Tirill’s 3rd album, and like the previous releases the music exists in a vivid, acoustic soundscape with harmonious cello and mellotron arrangements, beguiling electric guitars, dynamic percussion and enchanting vocal harmonies. The elements stretch from Norse Mythology through Mediterranean instrumentation, to a universal sound picture with a core of Nordic melancholy – all in a delicate mix of folk, progressive and ambient music.
For the first time, some of the lyrics are in Norwegian. The album title “Um Himinjodur” means “About Heaven” in Norwegian.
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/Tirills-Music-180307315337595/
https://www.facebook.com/Sonicbond/
