| Foto Allan Klo, artwork Dario Muhafara |
Jienat is a group – or rather a project – where the main person is Andreas Fliflet. Fliflet is known from the band Link, also from Hammerfest. Earlier Jienat have released the record Daja. That was more than 10 years ago, so we are not talking about a huge production.
The music consists of vocal and rythm-instruments. And a saw, a kind of trademark for Andreas Fliflet used on the track Tudeer. The crew varies from track to track, and consists of musicians from Finnmark in additions to South -american musicians.
World-musikk is a label it could be tempting to use on the Music of Mira, but i try to avoid using it. If we in stead take a look at the ingrediences of the music, traditional sami music is a main backdrop, while souht-american rhytms provide a strong character to many of the tunes. These two foundations have given Jienat a modern musical costume with a strong character. The tune Dancehall has got that name because, according to the composer it is suitable to be played loud, where people are gathered. And just that I think is one of the characteristics of many of the songs - perhaps also as a main thread for the entire release. Innovative danceable and hypnotic music with distinct roots. Or as the author has stated in the Argentine El Tribuno - "I think people who listen to my music are people with a sense of humor and open to new rhythms and styles".
Pure Audio Blu-ray
The format Pure Audio Blu-ray was presented early last autumn. I initially became aware of it during a press summit in Copenhagenen, where Denon was promoting the format. We have previously described pure soundproductions on Blu-ray as "Blu-ray Audio". The characteristics of Pure Audio Blu-ray is that it is high definition music releases with no video material. In addition, some steps are made to provide a good user interface without the use of display, in that one does not need to use the menu to play the disc, and that is the standard color-coded buttons for selecting alternate audio tracks (resolution / number of channels). Most Pure Audio releases are a dual release with both Blu-ray and SA-CD. It also applies to Mira. A great plus for the user - that both ensures compatibility with the available players, in addition to that you can use the records in different plants.
Currently there are only a handful of releases, where the record company 2L is very dominant. But the genius of the format is precisely that it does not rely on widespread, since it technically is a standard Blu-ray. There is no risk of getting the same fate as DVD-Audio as well as having very poor distribution of the HW side also suffered from being almost useless without display in many publications.
The sound of Mira.
Audio performance in Mira has two crystal clear signatures. One is viritually unlimitted dynamics - a very important ingredience of this type of music. Dynamic compression seems to be totally absent, or at least kept to a minimum. The other signature is a liberal multi-channel mixing, where the circle is used. Also this is an important instrument for this music. And who is the owner of this signature? The person we suggested in the introduction is of course Morten Lindberg of Lindberg Lyd. He has both made the mix and mastering of SA-CD, as well as being advisor to Andrew Fliflet regarding microphone setup. The result has been an issue that is very interesting sonically even though the sonic quality of all tracks is not quite on a par with the very best of 2L.
All in all a very exciting release in Pure Audio Blu-ray from Jienat, both musically and sonically.
