Composed, performed, mixed, and produced by Maja S. K. Ratkje, Sult is based upon Ratkje music created for the ballet Sult ("Hunger") by director Jo Stromgren for the Norwegian National Ballet.

This is a departure from the records and live settings normally associated with Ratkje, as we find her placed behind a modified, wiggly and out-of-tune pump organ, singing songs and improvising. Metal tubes, PVC tubes and a wind machine were built into the organ; guitar strings, a bass string, a resin thread, metal and glass percussion and a bow are also utilized. With little or no previous experience, she had to learn to play the thing live, using both hands and feet at the same time as singing.

Maja played live on stage during every performance, but later modified and recorded the music especially for this record, with Frode Haltli co-producing. It's a freestanding document, an entity of its own, but the atmosphere is very much the same as in the play: the dusty city of Kristiania in the 19th century, the street noises and the sounds."-Rune Grammofon

"Norwegian composer Maja SK Ratkje has immersed herself in various eccentric projects over the years - free improv outfits, performance art installations, a concerto for electric guitar, and even a 2002 album entirely comprised of breaths, gasps, squeaks, grunts, growls and tongue clicks that had been digitally manipulated. Her latest project Sult (Norwegian for "hunger") was inspired by Knut Hamsun's 1890 novel of the same name and uses music that she initially composed for a Norwegian National Ballet production. To add a further layer of complexity, the entire album is performed on an instrument that she built herself: Ratkje has taken an old-fashioned pump organ, powered by foot pedals, and added PVC tubes, wind machines, bass strings, resin threads and glass percussion - to the point that it now resembles some crazed Heath Robinson contraption.

But the results are quietly compelling. Using her homemade steampunk synthesiser, she's able to sound like a Bontempi organ, a wheezy accordion, a zither and the percussion section of an orchestra. Her aim was to conjure up the sound of 19th-century Oslo, but the tracks on Sult sometimes nod towards Steve Reich-style organ minimalism (Den spraettende), Ennio Morricone soundtracks (En træflis å tygge på), folksy ballads (Sjå, Åmioda) and breathy, effects-laden folktronica (Et hvitt fyrtårn). Crucially, Ratkje can also write strong, vocal-led songs, such as Sayago and Øine Som Råsilke, that transform this collection from background music into something that stands alone as a compelling album in its own right."-John Lewis, The Guardian, UK