Earlier that day is the soundtrack to a big city crime novel, written for 8 voices and digital sounds. The work is composed by Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt, aka the electronic duo Smerz. The piece is written by Smerz for the vocal ensemble GAEA. The work receives its world premiere at MUNCH.
Motzfeldt and Stoltenberg work together as composers, producers and artists. Their debut album Believer, released on XL Recordings in 2021, was a crossover of experimental electronic music, pop and contemporary composition.
The music Smerz has created for Earlier That Day ranges from humorous and playful classical caricatures, to elements of contemporary club music. The singers explore tension and suspicion in the kind of atmosphere familiar from the resolution scene of a classic detective story. The borderline between reality and fantasy dissolves.
Programme
21:00-21:35: Bow, Skjold Rambow & CTM
21:35-21:50: Pause
21:50-22:25: Tidligere den dagen, Smerz & GAEA
ultimAdvisor
Agatakristi1932
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Pioneers
I didn’t know what to expect from this collaboration. But I loved the results! The Smerz duo are some of the more innovative of current Norwegian electronic musicians. They take inspiration from many unexpected sources and ideas. Here, it was the crime mystery – at least the idea of it. Surely this is a first in music – another reason whySmerz are true pioneers.
Blyrør
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Who did it?
The vocalists in GAEA responded to this challenging piece by expressing the tensions and guilty atmosphere in Smerz’s texts. You could feel the tension between the different characters in a kind of call-and-response dialogue with computer sounds coming through the loudspeakers. This was a very engaging and sometimes funny piece, never heard anything quite like it.
Smerz I Photo: Bror August
GAEA I Photo: Guro Sommer
