Review Summary: Útiseta is an album that demonstrates that human creativity, suffering, ambiguity, and art are the roots of life, and that magic exists both in the mental plane and the physical one, both as phantasmagoria and as physical refinement to express the visio
There is magic in the world and every now again it shows itself to those with eyes to see, or ears with which to hear. Útiseta by Thurnin is one such magical creation. In a world of algorithms and a constant bombardment of advertisement for the sheer audacity of lining pockets, there comes an artistry that defies this philosophical ideology. Útiseta is an album that demonstrates that human creativity, suffering, ambiguity, and art are the roots of life, and that magic exists both in the mental plane and the physical one, both as phantasmagoria and as physical refinement to express the vision of imagination.
Sometimes music gets lost in the music, in its repetition, in its vibrancy of hedonism, and forgets that, to the envy of the author, it can tell such a personal story so strongly that one may reconsider their place in the world.
There are times in the editing phase when we talk about trimming the fat, as though the leaner the art the better, the fewer the words the better, the simpler the better. Sometimes, this is true. But this is not a rule. The closest thing to a rule in creating is how pure the art is at representing the feelings or the vision that one intends to express. Thurnin seems to understand this and has created an album that allows for so much detail to exist within a confine of structure without losing its focus or pacing or playful artistry. Útiseta is an album that tells a story in its fundamental conception while planting seeds that are sown in the psyche of the listener. That is to say, like a traditional folk song, Thurnin has made a world and woven a plot thread in their head, but then encourages the listener to fill this world with their own imagination, their own meaning, and their own subjective interpretation amongst an objective, solidified tapestry of sound.
The first song of Útiseta, which encapsulates the essence of this album by also bearing the album’s name, has all the hallmarks and signatures that one will find throughout the LP. This song is not only catchy, sonically beautiful, and deceptively skilfull, it is a warm invitation—a succulent entrée—for what constitutes a three course meal for the ears and the heart.
Immediately afterwards, Halcyon comes in with a sledge hammer of catchiness and a sprinkling of guitar noodling that says that this album won’t all be dessert and ice cream and foaming champagne. And yet, it unfolds itself in such a manner that it props up the following song, Særa, on a palanquin, serenading the listener with an unwavering sensation that the sweet, sugariness of Særa exists as a high point right before the inevitable fall, like a diamond glistening and reflecting the shadow at the end of a trodden path.
Because Særa is bookended by its beautiful and catchy riff, its real payoff actually occurs within Acquiescence, when the flute and the guitar come together in a dual soundscape of euphoric and cathartic release. This is the point in which an album may taper off, lose focus, or lose its purpose. Thurnin’s musical auteurism means the next song, The Gale, acts as the wind that blows the listener further into this fantastical world, a reminder of the musician / bard’s skilful composition and natural instinct for storytelling.
At the end of The Gale, and now nestled in an auditory cloud, the listener lands in the realm of introspection, with two very aptly titled songs. After having survived the storm, Thurnin releases Vagabond upon the listener—a subtle song with no real catchiness or radio-friendly riffs, as if to underscore how far the listener has come, how lost they may feel, how dark the woods seem to be. Make no mistake, this is when the album enters a gloom that was foreshadowed back in the midst of Halcyon.
It is precisely here where Thurnin demonstrates a keen eye for meaningful contrasts, that nostalgia only exists because something good was lost, that the present darkness is an injustice so much more because the light from which we have come has dimmed. By the time Remembrance steps in, the listener has already been sequestered through the dark wood and now stands on the precipice of a world of light and shadow, held together by a single riff that ebbs and flows on the verge of disappearing forever.
The Seeress is the precursor to the final song, and it is here where the structure radically shifts and a feminine voice haunts much of the back half of the song, a voice so beautiful that, like the way it sails within and over the instruments, I personally feel like I can also rise above my obstacles; and that not only can I do it, but every single person born into the great, mysterious cosmos can do it.
But all this exists purely as a set-up for the final song.
In the eleven-and-a-half-minute Endrborinn, there is a single motif that hammers home the anticipation that beauty exists because some people are brave enough to stand up to fight the destruction of entropy of not only the physical world, but the villainous part of the egoic mind. A person thought this song up, felt it in an inexplicable singularity. Their fingers made a replication of it. Woven inside this vast landscape of sound, mind and matter aren’t separated. The genius of Endrborinn is precisely this: the subtle and ever changing chord progression is a prism of emotion that resonates within the soul of the listener. This song is the true focus of this entire album without which no real satisfaction could be achieved. Endrborinn is both a single stroke of genius and the endpoint of Útiseta. It is the Alpha and the Omega, the centrifugal point around which the integrity of the album rests; because this is the song that knows not to be too catchy, not to be too serious, not to be too light hearted. This is the end song that emphasises that both dark and light exist in our world simultaneously, and you either flow with the river or forever struggle against the current. Life has a way of lulling us into a sense of comfort and familiarity. Útiseta is an album that shakes us awake and reminds us, through a series of intricate songs, that we exist beneath something of grander proportions, that we are blessed for being witness to it, and that the mystery of life is fundamental to our existence. Every now and again we are spoken to through art with a suggestion that maybe things are bad simply because it’s the only way to know what goodness is.
If I could condense my feelings of this album into a few short imperatives, it would be as follows: Be well, be kind, and remember that no one gets out of this life alive.
