Maja Ratkje

Italian airship engineer Umberto Nobile enjoys a quiet life with his beloved dog Titina. One day, Norwegian explorer superstar Roald Amundsen contacts him and orders an airship to conquer The North Pole.

In the darkness of a peaceful village, a pyromaniac ignites his first fire. As more fires break out, the society panics. An inferno lurks under the surface as a local policeman uncovers the unthinkable truth...

The film is a visual sound poem, a political investigation into human-ocean relationship. Tjaetsie means water in South Sámi language. The film takes us to the inhabitants both in and around the sea, a journey through vulnerability and hybris. With human-affected time as our backdrop, the mythical figurine "Gorrijh gujne" (Spawning Lady), of the Froan sea represents the ancient forces of Ocean.

This album interleaves the composer’s own voice as a performer with the ensemble sound of CIKADA and Oslo Sinfonietta. In “And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep” the voice is pre-recorded, and the sound files are played through loudspeakers placed among the musicians. In Concerto for Voice (moods IIIb) the composer is performing live a solo part for amplified voice, using much wider dynamics and improvisation. While performing has influenced and inspired Maja S. K. Ratkje’s composing, the opposite is also true – even though it’s too simple to say that she improvises like a composer and composes like an improvising musician: “The process of composition is primarily about mastering form and contextualising elements – both the actual sounds and the formal units – musically,” she says.