Erik Wøllo releases limited-edition CD ‘Earthshine’ on Projekt Records
Erik Wøllo releases “Earthshine” on Projekt Records, a 20-track ambient album recorded to analog tape, limited to 300 CDs.
Projekt Records releases Norwegian ambient musician Erik Wøllo‘s new album Earthshine on 18 September 2026. The album is available as a Pay What You Can digital release and as a CD limited to 300 copies, packaged in a 4-panel digipak.
The title refers to earthshine, the sunlight reflected from the earth’s surface that faintly illuminates the part of the moon not directly lit by the sun. Across 20 short tracks that crossfade into one another, “Earthshine” moves through abstract electronic soundscapes built from processed drones and sequencer pulses, alternating between expressive passages and sparser, hushed sections. The CD edition also includes a 21st, gapless version of the full album as a single continuous piece.
Wøllo recorded the album to analog 4-track and 8-track tape machines before transferring the material to computer for further arranging and mixing, a return to the recording approach he used in the 1980s.
Explaining why he went back to tape for “Earthshine”, Wøllo said: “When the tape is running, something affects me, I descend into myself, realizing music completely in the moment. I wanted to go back to the way of recording I was into in the 1980s, using old analog tape recorders. How would it affect my compositional process? Would it take me in other compositional directions? Compare it to writing a novel with a pencil instead of a computer. The unhurried measured approach was more time-consuming and led me to make different creative choices. It turned out that the music became more fluid and open-ended.”
Beyond the Projekt Records Bandcamp page, “Earthshine” is also available through Projekt’s distribution partners deejaydead.de, littleuniversemusic.co.uk and audioglobe.it.
About Erik Wøllo
Erik Wøllo was born on 6 January 1961 in Hemsedal, Norway. He started playing guitar at age 11 and began his professional career in 1980, touring Norway in jazz, rock and fusion bands before turning to a full-time solo career in 1984, when he built his own studio, Wintergarden. His third album, “Traces” (1985, Cicada Records), marked a turning point toward the guitar-and-synthesizer-based ambient and space music style that has defined his solo work since.
Wøllo has released more than 50 solo albums, moving through labels including Origo Sound, Monumental Records and Spotted Peccary Music before settling with Projekt Records, which has issued his work since “Gateway” (2010) and remains his current label. His catalog includes “Silent Currents” (2011), “Different Spaces” (2017), “Recurrence” (2021), “Sojourns” (2022) and “Snow Tides” (2026), among others.
He has also released collaborative albums with Steve Roach (“Stream of Thought”, 2009, and “The Road Eternal”, 2011), Michael Stearns (“Convergence”, 2020), Ian Boddy (“Frontiers”, 2012, “Meridian”, 2018, and “Revolve”, 2023), and Byron Metcalf (“Earth Luminous”, 2016), among others. “Revolve”, made with Ian Boddy, won the Schallwelle Award for best ambient album in 2023. Wøllo contributed a rework to Apoptygma Berzerk’s 25th-anniversary album “SDGXXV”, having worked with the band in the studio during the making of their 1993 debut “Soli Deo Gloria”. He has also performed at Chuck van Zyl’s Star’s End “Gatherings” concert series in Philadelphia, alongside artists including Steve Roach and Robert Rich. “Earthshine” extends his ongoing run of releases on Projekt Records into a new recording method rooted in his earliest analog tape work.
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