Supersilent and Hans Magnus Ryan

 
And just like we wished for in the previous blog post, Henie Onstad uploaded a couple of videos from the concert with Supersilent and Motorpsycho´s Hans Magnus Ryan.
Wish I was there!

Supersilent 10

Supersilent is as silent as they can be (I believe) on Supersilent 10 (Rune Grammofon)! While Helge Sten, Ståle Storløkken and Arve Henriksen all played organ on Supersilent 9, they have found their old instruments here, and even an acoustic piano!
10:3, one of the longest tracks (6 minutes), make my try to decide which old ECM album this one might have been on. On 10:5 they really fire up the electronics, and the fantastic 10:8 (the tracks are just numbered, sorry) would fit on any Arve Henriksen solo album too.
A beautiful album indeed!

The band is playing at the Punkt festival in Kristiansand this week, and I sure hope the good people at Henie Onstad will upload some videos from the concert with Motorpsycho´s Hans Magnus Ryan held 29 August.

But, I´m starting to get a bit fed up by the Supersilent covers, I have to tell you that (and I do like Kim Hiorthøy!). When i buy CDs and vinyl albums, it would be nice to get some more info, or at least be able to read the few words printed. Hey, some of us are getting old here!

The Unthanks: Sea Song

I guess all of you are ready for another version of Robert Wyatt´s "Sea Song"? Anyway, listen to The Unthanks from Green Man Festival 2010.

Jazza

Please note: The "Jazza Festival - Music for the people of Palestine" is happening in London 12 October. Wyatt, Atzmon & Stephen´s album "For the ghosts within" will be launched here.
Artists playing: Nizar Al-issa, Sarah Gillespie Quartet, Gilad Atzmon and The Unthanks.

Run on over to Domino to take a look at the album cover, and pre-order too if you like.

Info added Sunday August 29:
Please note - Robert Wyatt will not be singing himself, but  Cleveland Watkiss is singing with Atzmon and Stephen.

UlTIMA 2010

If you are not too far away from Oslo 8 - 18 September, you should consider to visit ULTIMA - Oslo Contemporary Festival.

At least they have a nice video teaser, made by Jazzmontør!

Bad Again

This is my last reminder on Richard Thompson´s new album: "Dream Attic". It will be released by Proper Records (UK, 30 August) and Shout! Factory (US, 31 August).
The musicians are Pete Zorn (guitars, flute, sax, mandolin), Michael Jerome (drums), Taras Prodaniuk (bass) and Joel Zifkin (violin, mandolin), and the producer of this live recording is Simon Tassano.
You may buy some special editions too.
The video´s "Bad Again", is one of the songs on the album.

Tracey Thorn

OK folks, today an album of love songs! The songs may be about the difficult parts of love, but anyway here is  Tracey Thorn´s (Marine Girls, Everything But The Girl) third solo album "Love and it´s opposite" (Strange Feeling Records 2010).
I must admit I was preparing a post on this album as one of the great break-up albums, because some of the best songs here are very sad or bitter sweet ("Oh the Divorces", "Singles Bar"), but thank God it seems like Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt are doing just fine! Read an interview in The Guardian to settle your nerves. Phuh!
On Lee Hazelwood´s "Come on home to me" she is joined by the good Swede,  Jens Lekman.

Great voice, good lyrics and fine melodies, and you probably have this album already, since it has been out for a while.

John Surman 1969

Next year Cuneiform will release a CD/DVD with John Surman called "NDR Jazz Workshop Hamburg, Germany, April 18, 1969" with these musicians: John Surman (baritone and soprano sax), Alan Skidmore (tenor sax, flute), Ronnie Scott (tenor sax), Mike Osborne (alto sax), Malcom Griffiths (trombone), Erich Kleinschuster (trombone), Kenny Wheeler (trumpet and flugelhorn), Fritz Pauer (piano), Harry Miller (double bass), Alan Jackson (drums).
This recording has not been released before, but you will find some of the musicians in John Surman´s discography already of course. Now please study Part 1 (1966 - 1986) and Part2 (1987 - now) of the discography.

Golden Serenades

Last October I wrote a post on Golden Serenades and their album Hammond Pops.
On this one Jørgen Træen and John Hegre made some serious noise, together with Sigbjørn Apeland.
The concert in the church Fagerborg kirke in June, must have been less noisy and (I guess) quite a bit more enjoyable!
More videos over at bobilia´s channel.

Star Spangled Hendrix

On the 18th of September it is 40 years since Jimi Hendrix died. BBC 4 have made the program "Star Spangled Hendrix", where Robert Wyatt and others are interviewed.
We´ll just have to try and have a listen here.

Drivan: Disko (Smalltown Supersound)

Kim Hiorthøy has started the band Drivan, with the two Swedes Louise Peterhoff and Lisa Ôsterberg and Kristiina Viiala from Finland.
Disko is not at all "disco with a c", but lo-fi, strange electro pop, and lots of charming melodies. Even if the songs are sung in Swedish (and you don´t understand them), you would want to have the album of course, if you are a fan of Hiorthøy. The songs are about Volvos and camping, and life as it is I guess, and one of the songs may even have something to do with "Bat out of hell".
People also seem to find traces of prog and folk in here, but just check it out!

500 copies are made on white vinyl.

Frode Gjerstad & Dag Erik Knedal Andersen

Here are Frode Gjerstad and Dag Erik Knedal Andersen, recorded at the mini festival "Høyt and Lavt" in Oslo 6 August. The free jazz veteran Frode Gjerstad don´t need any presentation today, but I had to check my Norwegian blog for posts on Knedal Andersen, and if you want to try, look there: Marianne Halmrast Quintet, No Gutvik, Khan and Supersonic Rocketship.

All Ears Bleed

John Hegre and Jean-Philippe Gross call themselves Blackpackers on "All Ears Bleed" (Ritte Ritte Ross 2010). Just turn this one up, and your ears will bleed for a good half hour, to the noise recorded at the All Ears festival in Oslo (17th January 2009).
The day after the concert I wrote this (short even for this blog!): "John Hegre/Jean-Philippe Gross (Noise a la Hendrix and Who. Wheeee!)". I must have been pretty high (not on drugs, mind you) after the festival, because at least I can´t find much resemblance to The Who here now. But I promise you, this is tough enough, with Hegre on guitar and Gross on electronic stuff and microphones.

I´ve listened to this album a couple of times now, on close to full volume, and I can hear storms and quiet moments before storms in there and sirens and war scenes, and after a while it is almost like I start hallucinating and hear voices. I think I hear a woman say "What on earth is this? Can you please turn down the volume?" Spooky!

Cover design: Lasse Marhaug.

Peter Blegvad on traveling and rhyming

It seems like our old friend Peter Blegvad has done som creative writing performance at the University of Warwick!
Let us have another Blegvad album soon too!

University of Errors: Sea Song

Take a look at Daevid Allen and University of Errors, recorded in Tel Aviv 17 August.
During Robert Wyatt´s "Sea Song", it seems like Allen gets some kind of telepathic message from Wyatt to stop the song, and so he does!

Guro Skumsnes Moe

Here is a Norwegian bass player to look out for. Guro Skumsnes Moe played with Art Directors and Fred Frith in Oslo in the beginning of August, and the other day she played with Maja Ratkje and Else Olsen Storesund at the Oslo Jazz Festival.

The record company Conrad Sound will soon release an album by Sekstett (yes, meaning sextet), whose band members are Lene Grenager, Børre Mølstad, Håvard Skaset, Frode Gjerstad, Hild Sofie Tafjord and Guro Skumsnes Moe.
And they do a concert in Bergen 7 September, if you should happen to be here.

Check out the Art Directors video (from 2007), where they play Frank Zappa´s "Who are the brain police" (from Mothers of Invention - "Freak Out!"- 1966). Or watch another format over at YouTube.

An introduction to Syd Barrett

In the beginning of October EMI will release a Syd Barrett collection called "An Introduction to Syd Barrett". It will contain material both from his Pink Floyd days and his solo albums. The music is remastered, and some tunes are remixed by David Gilmour.
Since "I love you" from "The Madcap Laughs" (1970) is here, I guess we may add another record to the Robert Wyatt discography too.

If you buy the CD, or download from iTunes, you will get a code that will give you access to a download, being a long instrumental called "Rhamadan". Probably a must, heh?

I found the info and the cover on the David Gilmour blog.

And David Gilmour is also on album together with The Orb!

Good music and good causes

Good music in support of good causes is still a good idea, isn´t it?

First of all you may download (that´s the only way!) Dirty Projectors and Björk´s "Mount Wittenberg Orca". You will get seven tracks for a minimum of $7, and the money will be granted to The National Geographic Society´s ocean initiative. No less, and it´s great music too!

Also check out the old Pink Floyd comrades David Gilmour and Roger Waters´ concert in support of young Palestinian refugees over at HOPING. Then click on the DONATE-button.

OK, OK, I´ll do it!

Food: Quiet Inlet (ECM 2010)

Food now seems to be the duo Thomas Strønen (drums, electronics) and Iain Bellamy (tenor and soprano saxophones). On their new album "Quiet Inlet" (April 2010) they are joined by Nils Petter Molvær (trumpet, electronics) and Christian Fennesz (guitar, electronics).
What do you get? Beautiful melodies and elegant soundscapes! This is perfect both on a late Saturday and an early Sunday morning.

I can´t find any title related to food on "Quiet Inlet"! If quiet and beautiful music scare you off, you might find some more to chew on on some of their earlier stuff, with Arve Henriksen (trumpet, voice) and Mats Eilertsen (bass) in the band. Titles on the album "Veggie" (Rune 2002) are all about food ("Tofu", "Chickpea" "Mushroom" etc), and the other day I found a used copy of their first album "Food" (Feral Records 1999) with inlays, pasta and laurel leaf!

The discography before "Quiet Inlet", all stolen from Thomas Strønen´s site:
Food (Feral Records 1999)
Organic and GM Food (Feral Records 2001)
Veggie (Rune Grammofon 2002)
Last Supper (Rune Grammofon 2004)
Molecular Gastronomy (Rune Grammofon 2007)

Beyond the Street

Order "Beyond the Street. The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art" by Patrick Nguyen and Stuart Mackenzie (Eds.) (Die Gestalten Verlag 2010), and you will get 2,5 kilos of street art.
Artists and organizers of festivals and galleries are interviewed, and (surprise!) you get a lot of pictures too.
I don´t know if the 100 selected really are the 100 leading figures, and since I´m Norwegian I´m happy to find two in here from my country; DOLK and the Stavanger festival NUART. Thanks to NUART I have also seen works by some of the chosen 100, like Swoon, Blek Le Rat, D*Face, Nick Walker, Herakut and Know Hope.

Just click on the picture above, and you should be able to read who is in this fine book.

Rough Trade

Rough Trade! They started out with bands like Stiff Little Fingers, Cabaret Voltaire, Raincoats and The Smiths, and lately they have released The Strokes, Belle & Sebastian, Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire and Antony and The Johnsons and others (see list of artists).
Geoff Travis started the record shop Rough Trade in London i 1976, and it developed into a record company in 1978. The history of how the shop and company that focused on post punk and alternative rock, changed from a radical collective (one for all an all for one, and everything had to be discussed!) into what became more like a major label, is described in "Document and eyewitness. An intimate history of Rough Trade" by Neil Taylor (Orion 2010).

The book is mainly interviews with Geoff Travis and several (!) co-workers and some musicians too.
Robert Wyatt is one of the musicians interviewed. He ended up on Rough Trade after a fall out with Virgin. Wyatt don´t describe Virgin´s Richard Branson as the evil guy, but calls him a "straight-down-the-line-neo-Con capitalist". Wyatt was treated well by Rough Trade, and cooperated with some of their artists ( Scritti Politti and Raincoats). Did he work with Scritti Politti because Alfie claimed their music was perfect for kneading bread (The Sweetest Girl)? Could be!

Even if it´s a bit too much of the business aspects here for my tastes, it still is a good read, and you should probably order it too. If you are just going to sneak into a shop and read the Robert Wyatt interviews, you will find them in "Chapter 6: 1980" and "Chapter 8: 1982".

Green Gartside (Scritti Politti) mentions a soundtrack he made with Robert Wyatt for a Cinema Action film called "So that you can live", about striking miners in Wales (Lindsay Cooper is also represented). I checked with Michael King´s "Wrong Movements. A Robert Wyatt history" (SAF 1994), and a "slow tempo performance of "Born Again Cretin"" seems to be on the soundtrack.

Murder Weapon

Tricky´s new album "Mixed Race" will be released by Domino in September.
Here you get the video fro the first single: "Murder Weapon". Dance like a butterfly!
Echo Minott´s original here.

Atomic

Please note:
Atomic: "Theater Tilters Vol 2" (Jazzland 2010).
Atomic: "Boom Boom" (No Business Records, Reissue 2003/2010 - Vinyl 500 copies).
Atomic: "The Bikini Tapes" (No Business Records, Reissue, 20005/2010 - Vinyl 300 copies).

Since I steal a lot from the blog "Free Jazz" anyway, why don´t you just pop over and read there? "Theater Tilters Vol 2" has been in my possession all summer, and I believe the official release is just around the corner, but 23 August you may also buy both volumes as a double CD. Just do it!

Angles

I´m sorry (NOT!) if this blog costs you a lot of money, but here is another jazz album you just have to get: Angles " Epileptical West/Live In Coimbra" (Clean Feed, 2010). Angles is Johan Berthling (b), Kjell Nordeson (d), Magnus Broo (t), Martin Küchen (ts), Mats Äleklint (tb) and Mattias Ståhl (vib). This is recorded in front of an enthusiastic audience in Coimbra (Portugal) during the 2009 Jazz ao Centro festival.
The music is composed by Martin Küchen, it swings, it is hymn like, they freak out like a free jazz brass band, and they even add some world music (or afrobeat as some reviewers say). This is just so good, and the live feeling is great!
Angles´previous album was "Every Woman Is A Tree" (Clean Feed, 2008), and I just have to get that one too I guess?

In fact I heard parts of their Nattjazz concert in Bergen (2008), but I can´t remember that it was this great! It might have been the sleepy Bergen audience´s fault?

Since I shopped music files at eMusic, I don´t have the cover text I hear is good, and I just have to guess that the cover designer is Travassos, who (l have been told) design lots of Clean Feed releases.

Alog

Alog is Espen Sommer Eide and Dag-Are Haugan. Here is a video from a recording session in St. Jacob´s church in Bergen (Mars 2010), with keyboard man Sigbjørn Apeland. This is going to be so good, check out Sommer Eide´s dance moves!

PUNKT 2010

It´s soon time for PUNKT 2010 (2 Sept - 4 Sept) in Kristiansand, in the south of Norway (don´t go to Kristiansund now!). I have made plans to go, so watch out!

Fred Frith in Oslo

Fred Frith played two concerts in Oslo this weekend, one with Art Directors and one with Hild Sofie Tafjord and Paal Nilssen-Love (video). Both concerts were held at Cosmopolite, and you may find another video from the Nilssen-Love/Tafjord concert here.

Reem Kelani workshop

Originally uploaded by wiredsteve

It seems like Robert Wyatt´s summer holidays are over. Here he is participating in a workshop on Arabic and Palestinian singing, conducted by Reem Kelani.

Penpals forever (and ever)

Let the autumn begin, here is some more dark and droning ambient from Erik
Skodvin´s Svarte Greiner, on the album "Penpals forever (and ever)" (Digitalis Indistries 2010). The first two tracks are remastered versions of music from the cassette "Penpals Forever" from 2008 (180 copies), the other three tracks are new ones.
To cite the record company, the music describes "the imaginary tale of a long dead Baroque painter and his telekinetic correspondence with a flightless bird". Scary and brilliant!
Svarte Greiner will come flying to the Bergen Ekko festivalen in October.

The new album was released on vinyl (450 copies), but is also available on CD from among others Boomkat and Digitalis (where you may listen to the album too). I got my vinyl copy from Oslo´s Tiger, and it seems like they still have some for sale.

Brecon Jazz Festival

I have already mentioned this happening in a blog post, and this reminder is a bit late I guess, but tonight Orchestre National De Jazz do "Around Robert Wyatt" at Brecon Jazz Festival". From the program it seems like new vocalists are invited to sing here. May professionals or amateurs record this!

And don´t forget the album.

3 Nights in Oslo

Since I try to be an honest man, I will not even pretend to have listened several times to all the music in this box! That may take some time, because the box Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet +1 "3 Nights in Oslo" (SMJZ 2010) contains five CDs, recorded during three nights at Victoria, Nasjonal Jazzscene in Oslo (February 2009). And in October they are back for three more nights at the same venue!

These musicians play : Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson, Jeb Bishop, Joe McPhee, Johannes Bauer, Per Åke Holmlander, Fred Loneberg-Holm, Kent Kessler, Michael Zerang and Paal Nilssen-Love, and if you click on the picture, you might be able to read what´s on the five different CDs.

So far it sounds just great!

You may buy it from Robot (and others I guess), for a ridiculous small amount of money!

Nick Hornby: Juliet, Naked

Summer isn´t over yet (I hope), and if you need a paperback to put in your traveling bag, why not choose Nick Hornby´s "Juliet, Naked" (2009, this cover: Penguin pb 2010).
Annie has been going steady with music crazy Duncan for 15 years, and let´s face it, she´s getting a bit tired. Duncan is a huge fan of the american singer Tucker Crowe, who released "Juliet" in 1986, an album often listed among critics favorites. The couple even travel from their coastal English town to visit important places in Crowe´s life and career, among them a toilet where certain things might have happened, that lead to an ending of Crowe´s professional career! Hey, fans do stuff like that!

Duncan runs a web site and a discussion forum dedicated to Tucker Crowe, and after Annie posts a negative review of a new and stripped version of Juliet (that is "Juliet, Naked") Crowe starts mailing Annie, and no, surprise, it does not stop there! I´m not going to say any more about that!
If you liked "High Fidelity", this might be the story happening quite a few years later.

Nick Hornby writes very well about music, fans, love and men who are boys, but a grown up man spending lots of time on a fan web site? Come on! *Cough*

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

Woha! Now how about this version of Bob Dylan´s "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", from the Norwegian Stangvik Festival 2010?
The music is arranged by POING and Maja Ratkje, and performed by Ratkje (vocal), Rolf-Erik Nystrøm (saxophone), Frode Haltli (accordion) and Håkon Thelin (bass).

You might want to see this smoking Dylan video, and read up on the song and Hattie Carroll on Wikipedia too.

…AND POPPIES FROM KANDAHAR

I´m a bit late with Jan Bang´s "...And Poppies From Kandahar" (Samadhisound, May 2010), but I promise you, it has been on heavy rotation on my Ipod this summer.
It is a fantastic album, and deserves a place on the shelf among albums by the musicians on the album, like Nils Petter Molvær, Arve Henriksen, Sidsel Endresen and Jon Hassell! These are all artists he has worked with earlier too.

I just steal this from Samadhisound´s site on how Bang is composing : “As I often do, I started working on instrumentals which I then presented to the musician that I thought might benefit the track – not unlike the process of making the Cartography album with Arve. … I knew I wanted to write music that had references to my influences, but where I could use my own dialect. I wanted to work with both composition and improvisation on an equal level – using contrasting forms, different dimensions, randomness, parallel directions which weren’t necessarily meant to express anything specific other than to work within the frame of the piece itself.”

David Sylvian wrote the titles for the music, and they make a story for the soundtrack:

1. The Drug Mule
2. Self Injury
3. The Midwife’s Dilemma
4. Passport Control
5. Who Grooms The Child?
6. Heidegger’s Silence
7. Abdication And Coronation
8. Suicide Bomber
9. Taking Life
10. Ululations
11. Exile From Paradise

Kreken

Check out the new video for Phonophani´s "Kreken"!
Filming: Marte Aas. Editing: Espen Sommer Eide.

Here is the blog post on the album by Phonophani.