Sixteen years have passed since folk rock/metal formation Lumsk last released an album, but there’s good news for the band’s many fans. May 5th, 2023 will see Norwegians putting out Fremmede Toner, the band's fourth full-length effort. Mixing was done by Rhys Marsh at Autumnsongs Recordings, and mastering by Arnstein Fossvik at AudioMaster.

The album's title Fremmede Toner, which translated means Foreign Tones, is taken from a collection of poems translated into Norwegian by the author André Bjerke. The poems featured include those by some of the most famous European and North American poets, such as Nietzsche, Goethe, Swinburne etc.







So far nothing too unusual you may be thinking, but this is where Lumsk take the concept one step further, because, after having composed the music using the Norwegian version of the poems, the band then take those compositions and adapt them to the poems in the original language itself, as they explain:

"Not long after the release of Det Vilde Kor back in 2007 we somehow stumbled upon a collection of poems by Norwegian Author André Bjerke. In this book, entitled Fremmde Toner, Bjerke has translated and re-created poems from different English and German speaking poets. When we read those translations and re-creations an idea started to form. We wanted not only to write music to the Norwegian poems, but also write songs to the original poems. The idea of the concept was not only to make the same songs twice, but to make the songs mirror each other in a way, trying to somehow recreate the idea of a translation or re-creation. As with the poems the songs are not the same, but still familiar.

"So, finally, after over 15 years, we are ready to present this work. The album, named Fremmede Toner, consists of twelve songs, or 6 pairs. First you have the Norwegian poems, and afterwards you have the poems in their original form. Even though it has taken us 15 years to release this new album, we have not been working on it continuously over these years. It wasn´t until we completed our line-up with a new vocalist, Mari Klingen, and a new guitarist, Roar Grindheim, that things really started to happen. We are so happy to once again be able to release new music, and are excited to see how it will resonate with old and new listeners.

"We really would like to thank those of you who patiently have waited and asked for news from us. The support from different places around the world have been important and moving to witness. It makes the enormous effort behind this album worth it in every way. We hope you will enjoy the album and the concept. It might be strange to hear Lumsk in German and English, but we are really satisfied with the result."

Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Lumsk