With Laje, composer Rune Rebne continues his series of portrait albums—an ambitious effort to document a compositional practice spanning more than three decades. The release follows Vegom (Aurora Records) and forms part of a series in which each album illuminates different aspects of Rebne’s artistic work: from translations and transformations of compositions to close collaborations with performers in the development of musical material.

While Vegom focused on large-scale solo works developed in collaboration with performers, Laje turns its attention to the ensemble as both a social and musical structure. Across three works – iiet-ii, Diidaa, and Ooid (remastered) – Rebne explores how musical material is shaped in the interplay between individual voices and collective processes. The result is music in which dialogue, friction, and listening take centre stage.

In iiet-ii for clarinet and sinfonietta, performed by the outstanding Ensemble Ernst with soloist Ingvill Hafskjold, traditional roles between soloist and ensemble are challenged. The clarinet does not function as a foregrounded solo voice with accompaniment, but rather draws the ensemble into its melodic movements. The music unfolds as an interplay of rhythmic threads and melodic impulses, gradually coalescing into a shared sonic unity.

Diidaa, written for mixed ensemble, addresses the contemporary abundance of expression. The instruments compete for attention in a dense and energetic trajectory before the music opens up space for more distinct and meaningful statements. The work explores what it means to truly be heard, and how listening can emerge as a collective practice, both within the ensemble and among the audience.

The album concludes with Ooid, presented here in a remastered version. The work emerged in dialogue with the microtonal aesthetic that shaped Norwegian contemporary music in the 1990s, while also representing a response to it: a virtuosic, gestural, and energetic expression built on microtonal material derived from saxophone multiphonics. The result is a shimmering and dynamic sound world in which precision and expressivity go hand in hand.

Alongside his work as a composer, Rebne has been a central pedagogue for several generations of composers through his teaching at Toneheim folkehøgskole and Norwegian Academy of Music. The portrait album series therefore also serves an important documentary and pedagogical function: it makes accessible an artistic output that has largely been underrepresented on record, and offers a rare insight into a distinctive voice in Nordic contemporary music.

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