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Violinist Nils Økland and keyboardist Sigbjørn Apeland, musical partners for thirty years, have long explored the interface of Norwegian traditional music and improvisation. Glimmer, an exceptionally beautiful and touching album, takes as it's starting point Norwegian folk music. Apeland's collection of pieces from local singers who have helped to keep the traditions alive forms the basis of the repertoire here, along with original compositions. Throughout, the combination of Økland's Hardanger fiddle and Apeland's harmonium is marvellously evocative. Glimmer is the sixth ECM album to feature the violin and Hardanger fiddle of Nils Økland. His discography for the label ranges from the solo album Mononograph to ambient alternative rock with the Lumen Drones group, and albums with the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble (Sofienberg Variations and A Year from Easter). His 2011 release, Lysøen - Hommage à Ole Bull was a widely-acclaimed collaboration with Sigbjørn Apeland, who also made significant contributions to the music of the Nils Økland Band on Kjølvatn (2015). Much of the music on Glimmer is related, in different ways, to the area of Western Norway where Okland and Apeland grew up, Nord-Rogaland and Sunnhordland, a region also known as Haugalandet. In addition to the pieces collected by Sigbjørn, the duo have also learned by studying older transcriptions and archive recordings, and improvising on this musical material. The original compositions heard here include music written for the film Lysets Vanvidd (Frenzy of Light). Directed by Karl Johan Paulsen and Pål Øie, the film concerns the troubled life of Lars Hertervig, the great Norwegian landscape painter of the 19th century, whose highly original work received international recognition only posthumously. With his feeling for nature and his independent approach to interpreting it in his dreamlike paintings, Hertervig has become a figure of symbolic importance for Norwegian artists, sometimes viewed as a Van Gogh of the North. Like Økland and Apeland, Hetervig's primary inspirations were local in origin and much of his work concerns Western Norway, where he was born, on the island of Borgøy in 1830. A sketch by Hertervig is featured on the cover of Glimmer. Rounding out the duo's repertoire is "Valevåg" influenced by modernist composer Fartein Valen (1887-1952) from Stavanger, whose concepts of atonal polyphony were ahead of their time.