Øystein Wingaard Wolf // Napoleon Wolf // CD

Øystein Wingaard Wolf goes on a poetic campaign through Europe on the album “Napoleon Wolf”

In addition to publishing many books, the poet Øystein Wingaard Wolf also has a career as a recording artist. Now he is releasing a new album he has called “Napoleon Wolf”. Painted from his palette of brightly colourful words, he gives us lush pictures of European history and our contemporary times. He also travels wider into the world, and the 13 soundscapes also feature a love poem or two.

The album was recorded in the spring of 2021, and Wolf approaches the prophetic when he sings:

When the Russians act like bosses the heart shrinks to a clump 

Hiding its love in a dance on spattered cobblestones.
There is blood on their fists like flowers in a dump

The circus on holiday while a trumpeter plays on his father’s grave

“Napoleon Wolf” is the fifth release by this singing poet, and the album is on the KKV label, which also released his debut album in 1998.

Wolf has many good friends among musicians in Oslo, and on this record they participate with deep-felt warmth to create a beautiful, poetic and even playful sound on the record around Wolf’s rough voice. We hear the producer and arranger Einar Stenseng on various string instruments, piano, pump organ and backup vocal, Hasse Bjørnstad and Håvard Krogedal on bass, Torbjørn Holte on percussion, Solfrid Molland on piano and accordion, Kristine Marie Aasvang and Ilaria Adamo, backing vocals, and Torgeir Waldemar Engen on guitar, harmonica and percussion. The latter is also the co-producer.

“Napoleon Wolf” is an exceptional production with its eccentric lyrics and deeply personal and no-frills expression. In the song “Voksen” [Adult], one of the final tracks, Wolf offers this thought-provoking reflection:

A human is merely a shadow with the one tattered life
to chase the king of pain with brush or pen or knife

You have your ideals which you try to match

They are just as helpless adults as us on the pedestals

Where they must stand

The author and satirist Dagfinn Nordbø has said the following about Øystein Wingaard Wolf:

“When Øystein sings, it is not only for the beauty of the song, even if they are always beautiful. His lyrics are raw like unsmoothed concrete, crazy like Monty Python or fragile like the petals of the daisy. The music on this record shows that few can construct lyrics the way he can. How he does it is beyond me. Øystein is in a class of his own. Let us be glad that we have Øystein Wingaard Wolf.

Track list:

1. Gi meg litt mer tid                                         2:47

2. April                                                                 3:42

3. Når Gabriela danser                                     3:25

4. Utpust                                                            2:01

5. I en verden av lys                                          3:42

6. Puma                                                              1:43

7. Barn av valmuen                                            2:08

8. Hun er en fest                                               3:14

9. Mine hemmelige damer                               2:01

10. Lillesøsters blues                                        3:04

11. Voksen                                                          3:05

12. Paris                                                              3:53

13. Mørket er en gammel mann                        3:46