In the contemporary landscape of experimental, folk-fusion, and avant-garde music, few releases manage to straddle the perilous divide between deep-rooted traditionalism and forward-thinking modern composition quite like Always and Never the Same. Released on LP, this mesmerizing collaborative effort features renowned Norwegian Hardanger fiddler Benedicte Maurseth working alongside the intrepid contemporary chamber ensemble Ensemble neoN.
The album represents a significant evolutionary leap for Maurseth. While her previous critically acclaimed and award-winning outings—such as the Nordic Music Prize-winning Hárr and last year’s Mirra, both released via Hubro—placed her haunting fiddle within expansive field recordings of the Hardangervidda plateau alongside sparse jazz-leaning trios, Always and Never the Same throws open the doors to a meticulously curated contemporary music ensemble.
At the center of this sonic universe is the Hardanger fiddle—Norway’s iconic folk instrument, distinguished by its sympathetic understrings that ring out a shimmering, continuous halo of sound beneath the bowed upper strings. Rather than burying this traditional voice under walls of modern instrumentation, Maurseth and her collaborators have constructed a specialized, resonance-rich ensemble whose every component mirrors, amplifies, and refracts the hypnotic, repetitive architecture of traditional Norwegian slått music.
Spanning eight intricately arranged movements across two vinyl sides, the album transforms traditional folk mechanics into a vehicle for avant-garde exploration. Co-produced by Maurseth, Håkon Stene, and Jørgen Træen—who also handled the mixing and mastering at Bergen’s Luftgrotten—the project strips away its original 2023 audiovisual staging (which featured live animations by Simone Hooymans) to present a pure, uncompromising audio document. The result is a masterclass in textures, where 12-string guitars, lutes, custom-tuned percussion, vintage electronic keyboards, and acoustic micro-tonalities coalesce around Maurseth’s singular melodic authority.
Detailed Chronology: From Ultima Festival to Paradiso Studio
The genesis of Always and Never the Same traces back to a collaborative commission conceived by Ensemble neoN and Oslo’s prestigious Ultima Festival. The piece received its world premiere in 2023 at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter as an ambitious, multi-disciplinary audiovisual production. During this initial iteration, the work—then titled Always, and never the same—featured live-drawn animations by visual artist Simone Hooymans, projected behind the musicians. These visual elements drew heavily from Norwegian nature aesthetics and the traditional decorative painting style known as rosemaling.
However, art is rarely static, especially when subjected to the rigors of composition and live performance. Between its 2023 premiere and its arrival at Oslo’s Paradiso Studio in June 2025, the piece underwent a rigorous process of deconstruction and re-composition. In its transition to vinyl, the comma in the original title was stripped away, and the illustrative animations were entirely retired, leaving the music to stand completely unshielded by visual narrative.
What emerged from Paradiso Studio was a tightly focused, highly evolved studio document. The tracklist itself plays with temporal symmetry and narrative compression. Side one of the LP houses the three longest movements, opening with the expansive "Contented Pelicans I." Side two opens with "Contented Pelicans II"—which occupies a fraction of the first movement’s runtime—and closes with "Contented Pelicans III," the album’s shortest and most concise piece. This sequencing forms a deliberate structural palindrome: an expansive, monumental theme is stated at great length, only to be progressively compressed and distilled as the record draws to a close, embodying the album’s core philosophy that material returning in an altered form remains fundamentally true to its origins.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Instrumentation, Tradition, and Lineage
To fully grasp the magnitude of Always and Never the Same, one must analyze the careful calibration of its ensemble. The Hardanger fiddle operates on repetition; a slått constantly turns over a small handful of musical bars, demanding that the performer’s virtuosic craft reside entirely within minute variations—an ornament added or withheld, a subtle shift in the bow, or a drone left to swell invisibly beneath the primary melody. Maurseth spent three decades mastering this tradition under the tutelage of master fiddler Knut Hamre. Translating this hyper-focused, solo-centric vernacular to a multi-member ensemble required an extraordinary feat of orchestration.
The line-up assembled for this recording is as unorthodox as it is effective. Notably, no traditional orchestral violin appears anywhere on the record. Maurseth’s Hardanger fiddle stands as the sole bowed voice in the upper register, anchored exclusively by Inga Grytøy Byrkjeland’s cello in the low end. Filling the sonic middle ground is a meticulously chosen battery of instruments designed to mimic or complement the sympathetic resonance of the Hardanger fiddle:
- Jan Martin Smårdal on 12-string guitars (both prepared and unprepared).
- Solmund Nystabakk on lute.
- Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen on vibraphone and percussion.
- Kristine Tjøgersen on clarinets, bass clarinet, zither, harmonica, percussion, and a vintage 1982 Casio Casiotone MT-70 mini-keyboard.
Crucially, four players share the use of wah-wah tubes—struck aluminum cylinders whose long, resonant rings bend dynamically as a thumb covers and uncovers an acoustic air hole. This deliberate avoidance of standard orchestral pads ensures that every corner of the mix hums with a natural, shimmering halo effect that echoes the Hardanger’s understrings.
Ensemble neoN: A Pedigree of Innovation
Founded in Oslo in 2008 by graduates of the Norwegian Academy of Music, Ensemble neoN has carved out an international reputation for fearless cross-genre collaborations. The group has twice claimed the prestigious Spellemannprisen (Norwegian Grammy): first in 2013 for The Forester (a collaboration with artist Susanna), and again in 2016 for their self-titled album neoN on the Aurora label. Further cementing their status in contemporary Scandinavian music, the Norwegian Society of Composers named neoN its Performer of the Year in 2017.
Operating famously without a conductor, the ensemble’s five core members featured on this record—Byrkjeland, Holen, Murakami, Smårdal, and Tjøgersen—exhibit a telekinetic level of ensemble cohesion, navigating shifting dynamic peaks and delicate minimalist interludes with seamless precision.
Literary and Philosophical Underpinnings
The intellectual framework of the album extends into its evocative titling, which draws direct inspiration from Buddhist philosophy. Movement titles such as "As a bee among blooms just walking through," "Delightful are forests unintended for delight," and "Unmoved by praise or blame" explicitly echo verses from the Dhammapada. They evoke the imagery of the ascetic sage who moves through the world like a bee extracting nectar without bruising the flower, the secluded forests ignored by worldly crowds, and the wise individual who stands immovable against the tides of public opinion. Meanwhile, the track "Nor mine, nor me, nor I" reads as an explicit musical deconstruction of the Buddhist formula for anatta (not-self).
These textual references are far from arbitrary ornamentation. Verses designed to be chanted or recited repetitively mirror the cyclical, hypnotic mechanics of Maurseth’s Hardanger fiddle music, creating a profound thematic unity between Eastern philosophical traditions and Norwegian folk history.
Official Statements and Production Insights
The sonic architecture of Always and Never the Same is the product of a tight-knit creative partnership between Maurseth, percussionist/co-producer Håkon Stene, and multi-hyphenate producer, mixer, and mastering engineer Jørgen Træen. Træen, who previously co-produced Maurseth’s celebrated albums Hárr and Mirra, brought not only his technical wizardry at Luftgrotten studio in Bergen but also made a subtle compositional contribution: his modular synthesizer is credited as a distinctive guest appearance on the record.
Speaking on the collaborative ethos of the project, the production team prioritized spatial clarity and acoustic transparency. By avoiding heavy digital processing in favor of capturing the natural, room-resonant interactions between the acoustic instruments and the Hardanger fiddle’s unique harmonics, Træen ensured that the album maintains an organic warmth.
The stylistic journey is underscored by Kristine Tjøgersen’s multifaceted contributions. Beyond her virtuosic work on clarinets, zither, and the retro Casio MT-70 synthesizer, Tjøgersen has proven herself an essential creative partner to Maurseth. The two recently co-wrote Elja, a major new quintet for Hardanger instruments commissioned by the legendary Kronos Quartet and Carnegie Hall. Premiered in March 2025 using custom instruments built specifically for the occasion by master luthier Ottar Kåsa, Elja has further elevated Maurseth’s profile on the international stage, earning a coveted nomination for the prestigious 2025 Nordic Council Music Prize.
Future Outlook
With Always and Never the Same now officially available on LP, Benedicte Maurseth shows no signs of slowing down her relentless touring and compositional schedule. The album launch serves as a pivotal bridge, demonstrating that the ancient traditions of the Hardanger fiddle can be successfully re-contextualized within sophisticated contemporary chamber ensembles without losing their hypnotic, earth-bound power.
Maurseth’s live itinerary for the remainder of the season highlights her remarkable versatility, moving fluidly between intimate jazz configurations, avant-garde chamber settings, and hard-hitting improvisational outfits:
- 19 October: Arendal Jazzklubb (performing Mirra alongside Morten Qvenild, Mats Eilertsen, and Håkon Stene).
- 20 October: Announcement of the Nordic Council Music Prize winner (with Elja among the nominated works).
- 27 October: Troldsalen, KODE, Bergen (world premiere of an entirely new work with the Mirra quartet).
- 16 December: Bergen Kjøtt (performing Telehiv alongside Øyvind Skarbø, Martin Myhre Olsen, Joel Ring, Ola Høyer, and Håvard Aufles).
For listeners encountering the Hardanger fiddle for the first time, Always and Never the Same offers an unprecedented, generous gateway into a world where ancient folk motifs converse effortlessly with the avant-garde. For followers of Ensemble neoN and modern Norwegian composition, it stands as an essential milestone in an already decorated career.
