If you know Dervaig is actually a small village in Scotland you begin to understand why the openingtrack of Sigward’s Balmung Beam EP sounds a bit eerie and dark. Long, long ago the Vikings came ashore at Dervaig (the word means ‘small inlet’ in Norwegian) but in the winter of 2019 Dutch producer Sigward uses it as a passage way to lead us into his new record. Balmung Beam is Sjoerd Sigward’s second EP for SoHaSo, the follow up for the well received Black Mambo-single from 2014. In the meantime Sjoerd moved from Holland to Germany, where he now resides in Berlin. This step has provided him with a cinemascope view on dance music, as his new EP clearly illustrates. Italo-esk flavors on the title track, meditative pulses on the beautiful Woodland Wells Inc and spacious Andy Stott-like tension on Jettison. DL/MS take Balmung Bean to new wave territories on their slumbering arpeggio-driven remix. You might just stick around in this small inlet.[info sheet from distr.]