Sidsel Endresen live

See Sidsel Endresen live and outdoor at Jazzebre Salses 17 October 2009 (3 more videos from the same concert on YouTube). Friday 13. November she will perform at the Bergen Jazzforum with Jan Bang – sampling, live re-mix, Håkon Kornstad – saxophone, Ståle Storløkken – keyboards and Thomas Strønen – drums.

The Royalties

The Royalties
Originally uploaded by svennevenn

The Bergen band The Royalties put some serious work into their covers for the new album! They are hand painted and made by cardboard. Way to go in the age of the mp3.

Kevin Ayers interviewed (in Spanish)

I don´t know who made this, or when it was done, but here is an interview with Kevin Ayers on Malorca (in Spanish).
Please remember Tuning up at dawn by Tomas Graves too, a book with lots of stuff on Ayers and Robert Wyatt staying at Robert Graves place on the island.

Added later, after comment on my Norwegian blog: From "Musical Express" TVE [Spanish TV]1981.

Garcia

I am a bit behind with my classics series, but here we go again. New Riders of the Purple sage is already on the list with today´s man, Jerry Garcia, participating. He get´s another chance, and is now on the list with a solo album, partly because I could not choose among the Grateful Dead albums "American Beauty", "Workingman´s Dead" and "Blues for Allah". Here you get "Garcia" (Warner Brothers 1971). It might not be a perfect album, but that´s not what we´re looking for in Wyatt and Stuff anyway. There are enough great tunes to put it on the list, and if you don´t know the album look for the tracks "Sugaree", "Deal" and "To lay me down" on some proper sites for downloading or listening to music. Freak folk, freak country (perhaps), long before such descriptions were born. Billy Kreutzmann and Robert Hunter is on the team, and the cover is made by Bob Seidemann.

More Wyatt related links

- Great piece on The Unthanks in The Herald 26 October.
- A very friendly person sent me a mail that said you may see all of Orchestre National de Jazz´s "Around Robert Wyatt" concert by logging in!
- Rachid Taha is presented in (Socialist Worker 27 October. A friend of Robert Wyatt from "the old days" it seems.

1982 live in Bergen

The super trio 1982 played at the Bergen International Music Festival yesterday. 1982 is Sigbjørn Apeland (organ), Nils Økland (Hardanger fiddle, violins) and Øyvind Skarbø (drums, percussion), and I have already recommended their album on NORCD in this very blog.
The concert was 70 minutes of contemporary folk (or something!). We got long stretches of very quiet music, before Apeland started to move furniture around, Økland headbanged while playing the violin and Skarbø was hidden behind the drum set, doing spooky percussion stuff on the floor, and then back to normal again. Relaxing, exciting and fun! A great concert for just a small audience (20 - 25 people).

Terje Isungset and Stian Westerhus

patgrigri uploaded concert recordings of Terje Isungset and Stian Westerhus at Jazzebre Salses (17 October 2009) on YouTube. More here and here.
Don't forget the duo's "Laden with rain" from 2008.

Playlist

People share lots of playlists on Spotify, Twitter and Facebook, trying to trick other people to listen to their favorites. Here is my version, a list of the tunes my iPod coughed up (Shuffle mode) when I was out walking today. I recommend all of them, but be ware of some abrupt mood changes in there (it´s autumn so we are like that anyway).
I hereby swear that I did not add or remove any artist or track!

John Abercrombie Quartet: I´ve overlooked before
Evan Parker: Conic Sections 5
Bob Dylan: Nobody ´Cept You
The Who: The glow girl
Jono El Grande: Your mother eats like a Platipus
Warren Zevon: I was in the house when the house burned down.
The Klezmatics: From here on in
Captein Beefheart: Yellow brick road
Malcolm Middlethon: Up late night again
Robert Wyatt: Little child
Robert Wyatt: Life is sheep
Jan Erik Vold: Mishimadiktet
Hugh Hopper: Digwot
MC5: Rocket Reducer no. 62
Richard Thompson: Miss Patsy
Spunk: Hvis en kantklipper fikk lov til å synge
Jan Garbarek: Knot of place and time
PJ Harvey: Horses in my dreams
Linda Thompson: Stay bright
Ai Phoenix: Autobahn
Atomic: King Kolax

A comment on one of the tracks above: If some of you out there are collectors, or just fans of Norwegian jazz, please note the new Jan Erik Vold box set (Vokal - The Complete Recordings 1966-1977) on Plastic Strip. You´ll find Jan Garbarek Quartet/Quintet and the Garbarek-Stenson Group on these albums. Vold reads his stuff in Norwegian.

ONJ received best album award

My French is as rusty as ever, but I´m quite sure Orchestra National De Jazz won a well deserved prize for "Around Robert Wyatt"! Here they play "Just as you are" too!

Lullaby For Hamza

Granite Countertops recently recorded a cover of Robert Wyatt´s "Lullaby For Hamza". You may listen to it at Ear Candle Productions blog, and it will later be sold through iTunes.

Klabbes Bank

Please let me recommend a Swedish band today. I have been listening to Klabbes Bank lately (the records "Je suis la mere" and "Kålsäter"). Even if I do not trace Robert Wyatt (or Carla Bley) in here, as the Swedish paper Svenska Dagbladet do, this is fine jazz. Some of the tracks are really calm, others make some waves (like "Je suis la mere") and a couple of tunes even make me think of Jaga Jazzist (like "Led meg bort" - meaning "take me away"). The band: Thomas Backman alto saxophone, bass clarinet and clarinet, Joel Wästberg alto saxophone and tenor saxophone, Magnus Wiklun trombone, Klas Henrik Hörngren piano, Tobias Sondén bass and Martin Öhman drums. Listen at MySpace, and download at eMusic.
Sound like a bunch of nice Swedes these ones!

The Unthanks and Jackie Oates

Even if this blog is filled up with noisy jazz stuff, I really like folk music, and don´t mind it being British.

Rachel Unthank & The Winterseth (played Bergenfest this spring) turned into The Unthanks. Their "Here´s the tender coming" (Rabble Rouser 2009) is a collection of traditional material mixed with songs by (among others) Lal Waterson, Ewan MacColl and Anne Briggs.
Jackie Oates (played in Bergen earlier this autumn) was in an early version of Rachel Unthank & The Winterseth, but is here with her second album "Hyperboreans" (Unearthed 2009). Lots of sad and beautiful traditional stuff, but also a Sugarcubes cover ("Birthday").

Ah, some great vocal folk music on these two albums! Buy them at your local record store, or at Amazon or iTunes.

Hubro

Those of you interested in Norwegian jazz and impro bands better watch out for the new Hubro label (under Grappa).
The first record is already released: Labfield (I.Zach & D.Stakenäs) with friends - "Collab" (HUBROCD2502). Other planned releases are Splashgirl (A.Løwe, J.B.Myhre, A.Knudsrød) with guests on "Arbor" (HUBROCD2500) and Mats Eilertsen Quartet (T.Brunborg, T.Dahl, O.Louhivuori) on "Radio Yonder" (HUBROCD2501).

Thanks to my Twitter contacts Musikkoperatørene and mizuhotroll for the news. Then we can only hope that Hubro will design a beautiful site, with lots of information on the artists and the bands, unlike several other labels.

More or less Wyatt related news

- FADER´s Matthew Schnipper on music that may make you cry (Nina Simone, John Lennon, Robert Wyatt).
- "A classic obsession with the electronic age". Max Richter in Herald Scotland.
Some good reviews (Swedish) for Jeanette Lindström´s album, where she works with Robert Wyatt:
- Jeanette Lindström and "Attitude & Orbit Control" in Dagens Nyheter here and review (The song "River" could have been lifted from "Comicopera").
- Jeanette Lindström in Svenska Dagbladet ("Wyatt works with a Swedish artist for the first time ever! The song "River" could have been a song from a Wyatt album")
- Jeanette Lindström in Göteborgs-Posten ("Important help from Wyatt").

On Some Faraway Beach

(Cover illustration: Gabriel Moreno).
Brian Eno has got lots of ideas, and have worked with so many projects it is no wonder David Sheppard´s "On Some Faraway Beach. The Life and Times of Brian Eno" (Orion 2008, my paperback Orion 2009) is rather thick. Let´s just mention some: Roxy Music, David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2, Robert Fripp, John Cale, John Hassell, Cluster, ballets, movies and ambient releases. This blog (OK: I am) is more than interested in Eno, not only for his own music, but for his cooperations with Robert Wyatt. Eno and Wyatt are guesting each other´s records, and Robert Wyatt is always full of praise about him.
I recommend this book, and might try to return with a blog post on the works of Eno and Wyatt, but here you will find a Brian Eno discography.

And talking about ideas, I´m not sure this organization materialized, but it sounds like a good idea: LASSIE - League Against Street Shit In England!

REKNES

I was at the concert (hear me whistle!) , and have mentioned that an album with a live recording was on it´s way. Finally "REKNES" is here with Bobby Bradford, Frode Gjerstad, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love. They did a fantastic concert at the venue Reknes at Moldejazz 2008. This is the festival´s smallest venue, and the concerts happen in the early afternoon, but you get the most exciting music. The CD is great too, capturing the feeling of the concert. This is free jazz for the ones who would normally not listen to stuff like this too!
I have still not seen the CD in any shop, but my local library had one in their collection already!
The cover is designed by Lasse Marhaug.

Kevin Ayers & The Whole World

A video from a French television channel (1970) recently surfaced on YouTube, where you get Ayers speaking French, and parts of a pretty aggressive "Why Are We Sleeping" with Kevin Ayers & The Whole World. Mike Oldfield and Lol Coxhill are in the band.

Jeanette Lindström

The Swedish singer Jeanette Lindström just released her album "Attitude & Orbit Control" (Planet Earth 2009). It´s a nice collection of jazzy pop tunes, or poppy jazz tunes, and Robert Wyatt is participating on five tracks (vocal and trumpet). You may hear it on Spotify and buy it at iTunes. I have not seen the CD yet, but had a couple of listens on Spotify while working today, and sure can hear Wyatt singing on the tracks "Morning", "Blue Room Yellow Tree", and the fantastic song "River" (also one version without Wyatt singing).

Peter Blegvad og John Greaves

Finally a blog post with Peter Blegvad again. Here he is live with Karen Mantler, probably not too long ago. Over at anotherspycam you will also find "Let´s Travel light" and "Second Coming". Feel free to comment if you have some more information on this concert.

Spockminder has uploaded five videos of Geoff Leigh & Yumi Hara with Chris Cutler and John Greaves from the Avantgarde Festival, Schiphorst this august.

Motorpsycho live in Bergen

Thank God I went to see Motorpsycho Saturday, at the USF Verftet, even if I initially had planned to drop out. Bent Sæther, Hans Magnus Ryan and Kenneth Kapstad were kings of Bergen this evening, and poured out some heavy progmetalpowertriorockandroll for almost three hours! It was bloody fantastic! I have not got much more to add, except that the venue makes it a bit hard to see the band properly, the beer is stinkingly overpriced and the boys of Motorpsycho support the wrong football team (Rosenborg), but almost everything is forgiven.

Check Motorpsycho forum for set list.

Shinjuku Crawl

Here is another record you have to buy: The Thing With Otomo Yoshihide: "Shinjuku Crawl" (Smalltown Superjazz 2009). This time Mats Gustafsson (saxophone) , Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (bass) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) bring along Otomo Yoshihide (guitar).
On he previous The Thing album ("Bag It") (released this spring) Gustafsson used some electronics, and it seems like a natural development with Yoshihide opening up the tight trio. From time to time it reminds me of Scorch Trio too, and I would really have liked to see this version of The Thing live.

But who produced the album, who made the cover, where was the music recorded, did Yoshihide play more than guitar, do they thank somebody, are they angry, did they eat at Ruby´s or was it sushi all the way? I don´t know, because I bought files (at eMusic) this time! Yes yes, I will be able to find most of the information I feel I need later, but buying music as files always makes me feel I do not get the full weight. Music is more than sound, and please all record companies, online shops and artists: More information on the net, please!

Dondestan - The Robert Wyatt Project

Festival Les Nuits Européennes is happening just now in Strasbourg. Dondestan - The Robert Wyatt Project is on the program. I steal this information from the festival site:
"Over the years, Robert Wyatt, legendary drummer of English progressive rock pioneers "Soft Machine", bound to a wheelchair after an accident, has created a unique oeuvre that symbolises pure artistic freedom. The album Rock Bottom is his undisputed masterpiece, but the more recent Cuckooland is marvellous, as well. Consciously ignoring short-lived trends, his music seems to be mastered by raw emotion and his voice is beyond comparison in this world. Dondestan, produced by the unofficial Robert Wyatt fan club, offers an eclectic and deeply sincere representation of Wyatt's work. The rules are as follows: every musician invited chooses at least one of Wyatt's ingenious compositions and writes new arrangements. New interpretations have been presented, and the master himself has considered at least one version far better than the original. Although evolving in very different personal universes, the musicians involved in this project have expressed an experience they all have in common: how they were affected, inspired, and influenced by this legend".
These people are probably playing: John Greaves,Karen Mantler , Sylvain Kassap, Hélène Labarriere, Jacques Mahieux, Karen Mantler, Jef Morin and Gilles Hugo.
Lucky you, if you are in Strasbourg, me, I´m going to see Motorpsycho in Bergen tonight.

Sonore

The three fine gentlemen on the video are Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and Peter Brötzmann. They are the trio Sonore, and this recording (more on YouTube) is recorded in Powiększenie, Warszawa 9.10.2009. Tonight ( October 16th) they play together with The Thing in Stavanger Tou Scene, and they are at the Dølajazz in Lillehammer October 17th. If it´s possible for you to be at the concerts, you better go!

The Beat of the Travel

Last year I wrote a blog post on Jens Carelius and his debut album "First Songs" (2008) and feel free to check my Norwegian blog too, for another project called Blues run the game (2009). This time it is his second album "The Beat of the travel" (Viking Records 2009). It´s not as Nick Drake and Bert Jansch influenced as the previous solo album, but a nice one still, even if some of you may find an album lasting only 40 minutes, a bit too short?

In the garden shed

They make recordings in taxis, like in Black Cab Sessions, and in trams, like they do in The Tram Sessions. Today I also found that someone is doing recording sessions in a garden shed. See "Songs from the Shed"! On the video in this blog post we see and hear Jackie Oates and her band doing "The Month of May".

Jon and Jimmy

I have mentioned the guitarist Jon Larsen from Hot Club de Norvège in this blog before, on his work with Jimmy Carl Black of Mothers of Invention fame. Now it seems like a new DVD is just around the corner, the topic being Jon Larsen´s relationship with Jimmy Rosenberg. These musical brothers and Django Reinhardt fans seem to have had a love hate relationship, judged from the trailer at least!

Twilight Luggage

If you are interested in noise, impro or drone music, you might like to know about the Bergen company Twilight Luggage. I bought some CD-Rs at the Bergen Noise Festival this weekend, and am working my way through them now. The people at Twilight Luggage even let you download the music for free. So far they have released
20 albums, the newest one by Cannibal Corpse (!) was released October 12th.

Google gadget

Finally, it´s possible to search this blog again, by using the new Google gadget (top right). Please go hunting!

Wyatt on Mojo and Uncut CDs

I guess the rest of the world already know this, but the new Mojo and Uncut issues just arrived here in Norway, so here we go.
MOJO´s album is called "The man machine. Mojo celebrates the electronic revolution", and Hot Chip with Robert Wyatt and Geese´s "We´re looking for a lot of love" is on it.
The people of Uncut have chosen the best 150 albums of this decade (as they see it), and on the accompanying CD we find 15 tracks from some of these fine albums. Robert Wyatt is here with "Lullaloop" from "Cuckooland".

Robert Wyatt got two albums among the 150 chosen ones, "Cuckooland" (2003) and "Comicopera" (2007) (57th and 144th place). Wyatt is also represented on two other albums, Paul Weller´s "22 Dreams" (2008) (he´s on one track) and Rachel Unthank & The Wintersets "The Bairns" (2007) (perfect "Sea Song" cover).
I´m also glad to find John Cale, Richard Thompson, PJ Harvey and Antony & The Johnsons on the list, and I don´t mind White Stripes and Jack White either, being the real winners of the game.

Soft Machine´s Oslo 1971 Concert on CD

Incredible news on the Reel Recordings news forum :

SOFT MACHINE ~ LIVE AT HENIE ONSTAD ART CENTRE 1971
(RR014/015) Two compact discs with bonus CD-ROM

Reel Recordings is pleased to announce the imminent release of, what is in our experience, the finest recording of the classic Soft Machine quartet ever committed to tape. There was never another band that rose to the heights that Mike Ratledge, Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper, and Robert Wyatt did, nor are succinct descriptions of their music applicable here. Therefore, with much to celebrate about this exciting double cd set, we have complimented this simply stunning concert performance with a specially designed CD-ROM. This colourfully presents an extensive eight-chapter essay: The Soft Machine Sound: An Acoustic Electronic Experience Examined, replete with previously unseen photos and unheard recording extracts. Hats off to the Henie Onstad Art Centre in Oslo, Norway for allowing our label of love to care for their extraordinary direct-to-Studer, two- track ambient recording. Additionally, we offer our deeply felt appreciation to Robert and Mike, as well as Elton's and Hugh's estate, for their enthusiastic approval. We hope we have done justice to the distinguished history of the Henie Onstad Art Centre and the Soft Machine recorded legacy, with the listeners’ approval in mind. Your first opportunity to knock on our mail order door will arrive on November 1, 2009.

Gong

Gong is here again, with the album "2032" (G-Wave 2009). The band is Daevid Allen - voice, guitar, Steve Hillage - guitar, Gilli Smyth - voice, space whisper, Niquette Giraudy - synthesizers, Mike Howlett - bass, Chris Taylor - drums and Theo Travis - sax, flute. Gong has reached 40 now, their first album "Magic Brother" was released in 1969!

The video, based on D. Allens drawings, is made by Mood Magic.

Bergen Noise Festival

Friday evening, as I passed the Landmark club in Bergen, a scared old guy came out, visibly shaken. I had to ask him what was happening inside, and in a typically norwenglish style he tried to explain.
From the official information (Norwegian) I guess it was Maranata playing when this happened.

Canterbury and Wyatt links

- Blogcritics : "Music Review: The Canterbury Scene Re-Issues Featuring National Health And Soft Heap".
- Jan-Philippe Ramos performs “The soft machine is less than obvious”, October 15th at Maison du Peuple in Pierre Benite (France). The music is dedicated to Hugh Hopper. See Jean-Philippes videos on YouTube.
- The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, October 7th claim that Klabbes Bank and their new album “Je suis la mer”, may make you think of Robert Wyatt and Carla Bley. Perhaps?
- As far as I am able to understand Le collectif Inouï made a ballet based on the music of (among others) The Residents, Fred Frith, XTC, Kraftwerk, Ennio Morricone, Robert Wyatt, Serge Gainsbourg and Sonic Youth. Or am I missing the point here? Read more (and help me) at Hibou, Anemone & Bear 2 October 2009.

Habbestad/Skarbø and Humvee

Damn! Yesterday I attended this year´s first Christmas concert, or so Bjørnar Habbestad (flutes) and Øyvind Skarbø (drums) claimed. Among red lights they performed a great impro-set, but I don´t think it is fair to any of the artists, when people in Bergen say that these fine gentlemen are "The Bergen Improvisation Scene´s Ike and Tina Turner"! Let´s just say they at least think about the visual impression to, not a bad thing when audiences have both eyes and ears (most of them, at least).
Next band on stage (or rather floor) was Humvee, handing us some energetic trio jazz. I think I must have mentioned Jørgen Mathisen (saxes), Rune Nergaard (bass) and Gard Nilssen (drums) several times in the blog (playing in other bands), and you may find that out yourselves when Blogger finally manage to fix the search system. About time! Humvee also have an album out on Jazzland (2008), and I hope it is as good as the concert was. Great trio, if you ask me.

Supersilent and Golden Serenades

The last couple of days I have bought two organ albums, a pretty unusual thing for me to do. Now if there are organ purists out there (feel free to comment), I’m not sure they will jump from joy after hearing these ones.

Supersilent dress up in turquoise this year, for the album “9” (Rune Grammofon 2009). Supersilent is Arve Henriksen, Ståle Storløkken and Helge Sten, and if Storløkken is master of the keyboards on the other albums, they all play hammond organ here, and nothing else. Minimalistic as always they call their tunes 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4, and offer close to nothing on Kim Hiorthøy’s cover. On track 9.2 they kick up some loud music, but the rest of the album is (super)silent. Imaging passing a church while walking at night, and you hear somebody playing inside. It sounds a bit like that (not that I hang around churches at night). And, yes, it’s quite spooky too.


Golden Serenades is John Hegre and Jørgen Træen. They sometimes ruin expensive guitars, but on ”Hammond Pops” (+3dB 2009) they have chosen to make som serious noise from Sigbjørn Apeland’s organ music instead. Strange thing, as i copied my CD, iTunes claimed my CD was played by Leon Russell! I don’t think so.

”9” and ”Hammond Pops” are strange and pretty tiresome albums. I suggest you check them out.

A physics lesson with Lord Kelvin

Lord Kelvin is Erik Johannessen (trombone, vocal), Gard Nilssen (drums, vocal) and Eirik Hegdal (saxophones, vocal). And please note, they all clap hands too. On "Dances in the smoke" (Jazzland 2009) you will find marches, improvisations, free jazz, and pure brass. This album is so good, and I should not be too surprised, because these guys are from (among other bands) Puma, Zanussi 5 and Jaga Jazzist.
This release must make science teachers happy too. They will find titles like "Thermodynamics", "Energy is conserved", "To measure is to know" and "Mathematics is the only good metaphysics", and all of us will read about Kelvin too!
The cover drawing is Sigurd Jacobsen´s.
This year´s most thermodynamic album so far.

Ivor Cutler: Privilege

Ivor Cutler´s "Privilege" is out on Hoorger House on October 19th. The album is made together with Linda Hirst, and David Toop and Steve Beresford are also on it. "Privilege" has never been out on CD before, and is one of three albums Ivor Cutler made for Rough Trade in the 80s: "Privilege" (1983), "Prince Ivor" (1986) and "Gruts" (1986). And since I don´t own any of them, I´m quite Happy now!

Folk

Paul Morley is interviewing Rachel and Becky Unthank in The Guardian (2 October). We have had several blog posts on the two sisters, and their band Rachel Unthank and The Winterset, one of the reasons being their fantastic cover of Robert Wyatt´s "Sea Song". Now the new band is called The Unthanks, and over at The Guardian you may se another cover too, this time of the beautiful Beatles song "Sexy Sadie".

And when you get in the folk mood, see also Morely´s interview with another English folk family, Waterson Carthy, with Martin Carthy, Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy.

Good folk!

APPARATUS

The exhibition APPARATUS was opened at Lydgalleriet in Bergen Friday evening. This is the first part in a series of exhibitions, where Carsten Seiffarth will present international sound art.
The artists at APPARATUS is Martin Riches (England) and Erwin Stache (Germany). Here you have talking machines, sound boxes (video above, with a box with my voice saying "this was a strange box") and a window you can play on. See photos in my Lydgalleriet set on Flickr.
Erwin Stache did a great concert with his self made sound equipment, and you may see a small part of it in the video below.

Stian Westerhus

Photo: Anja Elmine Basma.
Stian Westerhus (and three other artists) received a grant from his home county (Nord-Trøndelag) (Norwegian). We celebrate this wild guitar player with a Monolithic video recorded at the Oslo club Blå.

+3dB Records

Yesterday evening I attended a presentation of a new record company from Bergen called +3dB Records. This might be of interest for those among you who can take some contemporary-noise-impro. The men behind the company, Bjørnar Habbestad and Jørgen Knudsen, gave a relaxed and witty introduction, and even had a raffle with prizes from the catalogue (picture). I´ll just mention a few artists here: Lemur, Lene Grenager and Golden Serenades. They have three series: the main series, the lux series ("funky covers") and a CD-R series with local artists, called sub.
Check out +3dB´s brand new site for more info.