Alog
Biography
Active since 1997 and one of Norway's leading exponents of experimental electronic music, Alog is the duo of Espen Sommer Eide and Dag-Are Haugan. Espen has played music "all his life", mostly on percussion instruments, flutes and trumpet, before emphasising computer-generated sounds. He currently lives in Bergen where he is involved in the city's experimental music scene. He has released three solo albums as Phonophani, all on Rune Grammofon. Dag-Are Haugan holds a master degree from the Malmo Academy of Fine Art in Sweden. He started playing guitar in his teens and formed several pop bands in his hometown Troms?. He also released a solo vinyl album, "9 Solitaires", on the K-RAA-K label.
Mainstays at the Rune Grammofon label since their debut 'Red Shift Swing' (1999), Alog's unique, hybrid sound has since developed through four further albums - 'Duck-Rabbit' (2001), 'Miniatures' (2005) and 'Amateur' (2007) - that have each unfurled a series of abstract yet accessible, self-contained little sound-worlds, each animated with their own internal logic, mixing a wide variety of both electronic and acoustic sources into something warm, intricate and organic.
Quirky and unpredictable, Alog have refused to take up any fixed position, instead embracing the freedom to flit and root in the cracks between strands of minimalism, electronica, post-rock, improv and vernacular musics - merging woozy, stuttering electronica (a la Oval / Nobukazu Takemura / etc.), with rich, shoegazey guitars, freeform improvisation, Scandinavian folk, field recording and the masterful editing and soundscaping of electroacoustic composition. Their most recent album 'Amateur', marked a clear advance in the group's sound. Previously largely informed by applying radical laptop treatments to live, acoustic instrumentation, they have increasingly working with a variety of acoustic (and self-built) instruments as well as collaborating with other musicians for long recording sessions in special locations.
