Anybardinthegrass wakes up from a dream with no memory. The dream is still reverberating as eyes are opened, revealing a heatherfield, ears filled with a voice on a loop: “.. remember to sing to *beep* to ..”. A longing arises, an urge to fill the memory gap, to be transported, to communicate. From a platform on the field, Anybard takes off to a village called Stem, while recording a message - a memo - to the unknown recipient Deleted. The idea of writing a musical comes up; vague glimpses of people, feelings and songs start to connect. With the memo and the musical as recording devices, Anybard undergoes a transformation in which both the sense of identity and time itself seem to become erratic. Later (earlier?), the possibility of a true connection arises, as the character Companion shows up, confronting Anybard with what is seemingly forgotten in re-remembering.
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The twelve songs of memo offer a hybrid of curious digital orchestra music, electronic manipulations and wide synths, silences and cuts, emotional pianos, wavy soundscapes and game-like sound effects, all held together by the delicate pop sensibility of the sung narrative. The idea of signals is investigated, weaving sonics inspired by functional sounds such as alarms, mechanical beeps and contemporary sound design into the fabric, using them as motifs for the central theme of communication.

The entire narrative of memo exists within the frame of a message being recorded. The premise of the initial memory loss (as well as the title) reveals quickly the conceptual engine of the piece: memory, its volatile nature, and the ambiguity of forgetting and remembering. Anybards’ singing becomes intertwined with the intricate strings of time, those that make up the fabric of introspection and the fleeting sense of selfhood. The message is paradoxically both received, sent and recorded within the narrative - within itself. This narrative structure points to another central theme of the piece, that of temporality. Time manipulations/mutations disintegrates linear time, suggesting instead fluidity, multiplicity, parallelity.

As the collapse of the subject emerges and demarcations between the levels of storytelling are shattered, the realization, in memo, of those paradoxically coexisting worlds becomes a matter of communality, of experience being shared, recorded and recollected. This understanding is catalyzed by an external view upon the subject, provided by Companion, played by performing artist Lydia Ö. Diakité, the only feature on the album. Companion confronts the narcissism of Anybards’ way of understanding the situation, allowing for the arrival at the essential question:
What is memory if not shared? - sound if not heard?

With the album, Spellcaster joins Anyines’ diverse roster of artists and idiosyncratic releases in formats ranging from sheet music to scents. The book is released by Forlaget Virkelig, as a part of Bestiarium, a book series dedicated to experimental literature and worldbuilding. The album and the book co-exist in partnership as a listen-and-read-along experience, or may be explored as disengaged autonomous artifacts. This complex of entangled simultaneity reflects, also on a format-level, the multiple-world theme at play in the opera, orbiting as discrete entities, split yet bound.

memo is a sequel to Inventory (Visage, 2019), Spellcaster’s critically praised debut-album, where Anybard is first introduced. Both works are parts of a larger context, the musical drama series mem.mel.#9 : an ongoing format for coherent dramatic works, aiming for an exploratory, accessible and timely/timeless music, concerned with questions and interconnections of narrative, temporality, music and communality. Where Inventory was the song collection of Anybard, the character-sheet almost, memo is the real time gameplay of the character.

Spellcaster is a music project by composer and producer holger hartvig, part of both the ensembles Synd og Skam, LOL Beslutning, Brynje and boli group. Through numerous involvements in music and collaborations in the fields of art, performing arts and soundtrack, hartvig has since the early 2010s been known as an intriguing voice on the frontier of the Copenhagen underground scene.

more work from Spellcaster / holger hartvig:
hhspell.pb.online
mem-mel9.bandcamp.com
soundcloud.com/memmel9
www.instagram.com/_spellcaster_x/