Tirill - Reissues

Tirill Mohn is a name you probably may or may not recognize. She’s a singer-songwriter from Asker, near Oslo. She was one of the multi-instrumentalists that appeared on White Willow’s 1995 debut, Ignis Fatuus that was originally released on The Laser’s Edge label and reissued on Termo Records seven years ago. Last year, three of her solo albums from 2003 to 2013 have been reissued on Stephen Lambe and Huw Lloyd-Jones’ crossover label, Sonicbond.

These three albums showcase Tirill’s arranging and composition by continuing where she had left off during those sessions on White Willow’s debut. Listening to these albums, there is a Folk-like landscape that is set inside a gothic cathedral as if she had recorded them at the same venue by having this haunting atmosphere. Her debut album, Tales from Tranquil August Gardens was originally released As Dance with the Shadows on a small indie label, The Wild Places.

Unfortunately, when the album was released, the label was defunct due to the death of label boss Michael Piper. What Tirill did was to go back to the original album’s title. The guests that are on her 2003 debut include; Ketil Vestrum Einarsen on Flute, Sigrun Eng on Cello, Nils Einar Vinjor on Guitar, and Sylvia Erichsen on Vocals.

When I was listening to Tales from Tranquil August Gardens, Tirill’s voice resembles the spooky atmospheres between Happy Rhodes, Nick Drake, and Mellow Candle’s Clodagh Simonds. She captures these different tones that are stirring, eerie, emotional, and epic. It’s like being a part of her journey as we the listeners, embark on her emotional, beautiful, surreal, and powerful ride that is something extra special.

Nights are Colder begins this track with a dystopian scenario as if hell has arrived and everything has gone to pieces. You can imagine her singing this by going through the calm after the storm and carrying a bit of the Acid Folk and White Willow structures as she tips her hat to Jacob Holm-Lupo. She and Odd Halson Solbakken walk towards the rubble through the abandoned architectures.

When you listen to Don’t Dare to Love You, It’s her nod to Radiohead’s OK Computer. But then she carries that mysterious walk through the singing styles of Subterranean Homesick Alien and Exit Music (For a Film) with Nils’ steel guitar with Ketil’s intensive flute playing, and some incredible percussion work by setting up this scenery of a romantic relationship gone wrong.

Ketil’s reverbing effect on his flute throughout Heavy Heaves gives you another return to the futuristic nightmare as the spooky effects from the keyboards and the vocalizations between Happy Rhodes, iamthemorning’s Marjana Semkina, and Trees’ Celia Humphris. It makes you return to that landscape by sending shivers down the spine for one of the terrorizing visions that await us for the 22^nd century.

Sylvia and Odd lend Tirill a helping hand on Vendela by doing the vocal duties. You can feel the goosebumps behind you as she continues to honor White Willow’s music by keeping the flames burning bright as if this was recorded during the sessions for Ex Tenebris. Now with Nine and Fifty Swans, it was inspired by the poetry of W.B. Yeats as she continues to write these story telling compositions that was a follow-up to her 2003 debut.

She channels both Vashti Bunyan and Trees’ The Garden of Jane Delawney as Sigrun’s cello and Nils lferman Schultz’s double bass captures the day of a life of a woman who is going through her routine as being queen. Dagfinn Hobaek’s vocals give Tirill’s narration a shining light to the story while the medieval folk structures pay homage to the 1973 British cult classic The Wicker Man by dedicating To A Child Dancing in the Wind.

Parting is Tirill’s nod to Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle. Dagfinn’s vocals and Tirill share the mournful loss of saying goodbye to a loved one and the struggle to move forwards. There is some eerie guitar lines that come near the end. And then we come her third album released in 2013, Um Hininjoour (About Heaven). Tirill moves from the folky genre into the progressive and ambient sound.

Chariot’s usage of the mellotron fills in some of the empty spaces to bring some sort of closure as she fills in the missing puzzle pieces in the composition by fulfilling your destiny as the lifting melodies begin to make you feel closer by coming towards the heavens. Fagar Enn Sol (Pleasantness Than Sun) is Tirill at her strongerhold.

She brings her vocalizations into different areas that have a multi-layered background along with her singing while some of the minor chord changes at the end brings to mind of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory-era. The spooky keyboards on Moira delve into the waters of King Crimson as the sound becomes these atmospheric locations as the guitars swim towards the city of melody while becoming a shadowy shape-like figure that watches every step you make.

The gentle lullaby that’s on Quiet Night gives Tirill to go into this quiet relaxing finale as for thanking the listener to be a part of her journey. I have to say after listening to these three albums, Tirill Mohn has come a long way. 

Tirill is more than just a progressive artist, but she's taking it a step further to go beyond the genre and beyond the yellow brick road. I hope that she continues to do another solo record in the near future and waiting to see and hear what she’ll come up with next.