Thursday, May 29, 2008

John Hassell


Wednesday evening at the Nattjazz festival in Bergen: John Hassel Marifa Street. That was a fantastic concert. The ambient music coming in waves of beauty, and the volume was closer to one than eleven! That really made the audience concentrated (no drunken troublemakers until later in the evening!), and the sound of ice cubes poured into glasses in the bar fit in just perfect. Norwegian guy Jan Bang was great on sampling and "electronic stuff", Peter Freeman was rock steady on bass and M'Kachiche Kheir-Eddine made some beautiful oriental violin music. Welcome to the fourth world!

Next band out was BMX, a band of young Norwegians Njål Ølnes (sax), Thomas T. Dahl (g) and Øivind Skarbø (dr). Guest musician was old favourite Per Jørgensen (tp, voc). Damned great concert.

In between Hassell and BMX I got a listen to Post Hanne Kolstø (voc, g, pink plastic cassette player), Haldor Røyne (g), Ole Bjørn Atlstad (keyb) and Andreas S. Løwe (keyb). Charming indiepopelectronica with a taste of jazz.

And on our way home in the night, who else but Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek (Kings of Convenience) were sitting on a park bench with baby guitar. Cool guys.

No comments: