Omformer travel through the recesses of an ancient musical cosmos, reaching back in time toward the gestation of club music, where Ambient and Trance traditions converge at the heady heights of 140 beats per minute. Mikkel Rev and Oprofessionell combine efforts as Omformer in a 40-minute sojourn through the outer reaches of club music. The Uteklubb affiliates have been excavating the enduring sonic palette of 90s influenced club music for the past two years through Oslo’s UTE.REC label and clubbing consortium. They moonlight on local label HMD for Ascending/ Distance, a record that moves between effervescent ambience and heady transience.

Omformer stake their claim on the dance floor, bouncing through the first half of Ascending on vulcanized 808 beats and malevolent 303 bass-lines. Keys and pads stretch elastic tendrils into musical stratospheres where beatific melodies float across the turbulent rhythm sections. Halfway through the first track, Omformer abandon the dance floor for the second room, indulging the ambient proclivities that the Norwegian producer duo have come to cultivate across impressive one-hour compositions for their Sine sub-label. Serene pads, tracing wispy melodic threads through insouciant atmospheres create elegant pastures of sound through the second half of Ascending, which is then siphoned over to Distance for the most part of the record. Arpeggios flicker through an arrangement that languishes in the static realm of ambient music with the distant echo of a kick drum counting out the beats in calm meditation.

Ascending/ Distance finds Omformer during a cr eative flurry of activity that has seen a slew of records and tracks come via their UTE.REC label and sub-label Sine. Together with Uteklubb, they’ve been leading a charge for Ambient- and Trance music in Norway for the better part of three years, with events, DJ sets and live performances laying fertile ground for a new scene growing out of Norwegian woods.