Hold Still
Hold Still is the second album from guitarist and composer Eirik Berg Svela and follows 2018’s Bits & Pieces which was recorded in New York featuring the organist Sam Yahel, saxophonist Dave Edge and drummer Tore T. Sandbakken. This new album continues Eiriks work with Dave Edge, but features Roger Johansen on drums and the London based organist Ross Stanley. The title is taken from the memoirs of photographer Sally Mann and references the influence that photographers such as Mann, Alec Soth, and Paul Graham have had on Eirik’s approach to this album. Through careful sequencing and the use of interludes the goal is to weave a series of musical snapshots into a small story; a story that revolves around Eirik's sense of belonging, both musically and geographically.
About Svela
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Born in Oslo, the son of two Peace Corps workers and later vocational teachers, Eirik Svela picked up the guitar for the first time at the age of 9, and then for the second time at the age of 16 when he, having discovered an article about solo jazz guitar in a guitar magazine, of which he understood absolutely nothing, decided that he was going make a living as a jazz guitarist. He moved abroad in 2005, to Leeds, and continued studying and working abroad until he moved back to Oslo in 2014 where he currently resides. In addition to his work as a guitarist and a composer, he co-runs the music label Smia Records with longtime collaborator Håkon Bjørgo.