INGRID (ENGLISH VERSION)

TALES FROM THE CRYPT

While being in the Caucasus, I filmed our fieldwork and uploaded our videos on my channel on YouTube. These videos got a lot of views and more and more people started keeping track of the band. I started to give interviews and I was even invited to TV shows, just for the heck of it, because it sounds really nice to have Ingrid Sorensen in our show, just cooking with us, without us interviewing her. However, from the very beginning, I clarified this: "If you ask me about the lawsuit, I'm off". And all this, for the following reason. After 2023, far from the fact that all journalists (almost) were asking me whether I got married (I was fed up with being asked that, probably because people leaked the fact that I had moved back to Norway), the most common subject they wanted to bring up was the lawsuit issue. This belonged to the past for me and I was really exhausted being asked about it all the time. It truly seemed like a federal state!

Anyway, The Ancestor's Voice got really positive reviews. Prog Magazine described it as a rather down-to-earth album and highly inspired by Eastern sounds. That our previous albums had a more dreamscape or atmospheric sound, which might have been reminiscent of Porcupine Tree. Many of our songs, back in the days, fitted perfectly in National Geographic documentaries. And that's true. I had millions of those magazines, as many documentary producers were asking us if they could use our own songs. As for us, not only did we agree on that, but we were feeling so honoured that we didn't even want to be paid for that. That's why, as an exchange, they would give us National Geographic magazines for free. Furthermore, The Sky Moves Backwards was voted as the prog song of the year and this made me feel really satisfied because it was the most personal song I'd ever written. It felt like a warm embrace to know that there are people out there too, who feel empathy towards you and share your pain and the same feelings with you and truth be told, I never expected this song to have such feedback to the audience. And of course, it was my last goodbye to the depressed Poet's music.

So, after our album's release, I was invited to join a community of musicians, who were composing a genre, called landscape music. In the beginning, I failed to get what that could mean and I thought it had to do with something like world music. However, the members of this group explained to me that this was a style of music, similar to a soundtrack, and it would be inspired by several landscapes, countries or cultures. I thought it really fitted me, because I, personally, would often use images or visuals as a source of inspiration for my songs. And they would work in that group as following: They would compose their own pieces, upload them in landscapemusic.org and all the income would be sent to cultures, protected by UNESCO. When I heard this, I instantly went YES!!, because I consider it to be our duty, as ethnologists, to protect endangered groups of peoples. Furthermore, some years later, I used to keep my own personal world map, in which I would point to countries, which I would visit once a year (one every year) so that I could make field- as well as charity work. In 2031 I visited a village, close to Bombay and by the sight of how people lived there, I felt my heart being torn to pieces. But this is something we'll come later to. So, I became an active member of Landscape Music community and promised to compose music, whenever I am available.

Our tour started in late September. I have to say that Alexandria decided not touring outside of Europe ever again, due to lack of time and due to age. Thus, until late 2023 we would be playing solely in Norway. Then, I got a completely different style. I dyed my hair red once again and started to wear embroidered dresses. Johanna suggested I started wearing high heels, but I cracked up and told her: "How tall can I get?".

Our tour went on in January 2024 in a few other parts of Europe. We had decided with the band not to overdo it with our old songs, but mainly focus on our new material. I wasn't that worried about the fact that people could comment that my voice wasn't similar to Dina's -of course, it wasn't-, but more about the fact that my heart couldn't keep track of the content of those songs. Even The Sky Moves Backwards felt too odd to sing and, at times, really hard. It goes without saying, that memories were still there, even though all this pain and turmoil belonged to the past. I couldn't help but still remember everything I'd been through. At least, its finale, which was composed for Dina's sake, could give me such a great relief. During that time, I was sent an article, in which a fan was trying to analyse The Sky Moves Backwards. It was a rather interesting article because the song was compared to Dante's Divine Comedy. That the song is segmented into three parts. It starts with Inferno (the heroine's suffering), it moves on with Purgatorio (where the heroine kills herself so that she can be propitiated or redeemed) and ends with Paradiso (where the heroine wakes up in the grass). I can say that this analysis had a point and was rather interesting, however, I had never read The Divine Comedy at that time, so I can't say I was inspired by this book.