Memnon is built around an equally simple and striking ambition: Keeping the music as pure as possible. Relying on nothing but voice and piano, Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer and Helge Lien are eliminating the delay between the moment of creation and an emotional response in the listener. The very moment their music is released into the world, it is immediately perceptible as a tangible physical sensation.

For their first joint release, the duo have set themselves the challenge of sonically portraying selected characters of Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen. It has taken them to the darkest corners of the soul and to the pinacles of human thought. While Helge Lien is delineating the contours of these musical psychograms on his piano with clear blackand- white brushstrokes, Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer is filling in the basic shapes with rich, intense colors. Both artists are tapping their personal sound worlds in an effort of making these characters shine as brightly as possible. Listening to them draft, express, re-phrase and finalise their ideas is as exciting as a mystery, with the plot unfolding in the act of listening. Memnon is an impressive testimony to the overwhelming power and multidimensionality of sound: These sonic portraits reveal far more about their subjects than words ever could. Could music ever aspire to a higher goal?