28 Millimeters

Check out this video! JR has travelled around the world, and let people see themselves through his photos. JR is 2011 TED Prize Winner.

Untitled.III

Then there were three "Untitled" books, this time with the subtitle "This is Street Art" (Carpet Bombing Culture, 2010). Just as in  "Untitled" and "Untitled. II" we get lots of great street art, and this time lots of Banksy! The words are still not supposed to have anything to do with the pictures, but the book is a quite nice read ("witty" might be the word here).

Nothing from Bergen this time (as far as I can see), but Stavanger (Swoon), Oslo (DOLK) and Lofoten (DOLK, Pøbel) are all represented. You already know I  am usually focusing on Norway, and here I couldn´t do anything else, even if I wanted to. A list of the names of the artists and the photographers,  that´s all we get, and the pages where we may find the pictures. Pity then, that the book is not paginated.

John Greaves au Triton

Here is a video of John Greaves recorded in June 2010 (I believe), with Sophie Domancich and Vincent Courtois.

And don´t forget Sophie Domancich´s "Snakes and Ladders", where both John Greaves and Robert Wyatt participates (Wyatt singing "Wilderness"). A great album!

Dog Man?

I just love to walk around town and find stuff like this hidden in a back street.
The title seems to be "Dog Man?" (click on image to see).

Singing a song in the morning

I already had Gruff Rhys singing Kevin Ayers´ "Singing a song in the morning" in the blog, but let´s hear it once more. Here you have Gruff Rhys with  H Hawkline and Jane Weaver,  and let´s hope Kevin Ayers will record a new album too!

And another version added 5 December 2010.

What a wonderful world

Domino is releasing wyatt/atzmon/stephen´s "What a wonderful world" as a single 13 December.  I hope it´s not only a digital version, I guess most of you have the track on at least one physical or digital version of  "...For the ghosts within" already.

I would have loved to see the  record with the Santa Claus photo on the cover! I think Alfie is the photographer here, since it looks a lot like last year´s  Christmas greeting.

Domino is also releasing something they call "Domino Doubles", sold only by Amazon. Here you may get "Rock Bottom" and "Comicopera" at a very low price (29 November). But is it a double album, or is it two separate albums packed together? 

Eno - Keynote speaker

Brian Eno chose Ben Frost for a one year mentoring project, in what a famous watch producer call the "Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative". Here you may see and watch a keynote speech  (I´m not allowed to embed it here) Eno held in Australia, at another  Rolex initiative.

A nice speech from Eno, and yes (!) overhead projectors may be cool!

"The age of generosity" FTW!

Peter Williams

If you should happen to be in London these days, you should seek out the  Peter Williams exhibition. Williams has taken one of my favorite portraits of Robert Wyatt ever, for a piece published in  "Straight no chaser" in 2003.
See a tiny version of the picture and read more over at theartsdesk.com.

(Un)stable

Piksel10, the annual festival for electronic art and technological freedom, is over.  This year´s theme was "(Un)stable", with workshops, exhibitions, presentations and live happenings.
The technical part of this festival is way beyond what I can grasp, but I enjoy looking around! I did not participate in a workshop where you could build a capitalistic robot (!), but saw a couple of exhibitions (see top picture of Jorge Luis Crowe´s installation and warning) and went to two live happenings, where I got some noise, some strobe lights, some live coding with map visualizations and even some work on a "autonomous hyperspace mathematical model" by  Claude Heiland-Allen.
Do we know how to party, or what? Anyway, if this sounds like your cup of tea, look to Bergen next autumn.

The second picture shows Jorge Luis Crowe´s stash for his evening performance, and you will find some dark pictures and noisy videos on Flickr too.

Nordheim by Candlelight

I am not going to pretend that I´m an expert on Norway´s great contemporary classical composer Arne Nordheim, and all his works (far from it!), but let me recommend him still, if you have interests in that field of music. Most readers of this blog might like to start with his works released by Rune Grammofon?

Arne Nordheim died in June this year, and on Sunday evening the BIT20 Ensemble played a memorial concert for him, in a candle lit Håkonshallen. 

The composer is rumored to be hard to grasp or difficult, but the program yesterday showed that lots of his music is just extremely beautiful! 

The BIT20 Ensemble played :

Aftonland (1957) for soprano and ensemble, with lyrics by Pär Lagerkvist.
Response I (1966) for drums and tape. 
Partita für Paul (1985) for violin and electronics (dedicated to Paul Klee).
Den første sommerfugl (The first Butterfly) for soprano and harp, with lyrics by Henrik Wergeland (1982). 
Electronic works (Solitaire).

Nick Drake Tribute

Jason Parker Quartet will record a jazz tribute to Nick Drake´s "Five Leaves Left", but they need  $ 5000 before Christmas! So far they have got only half the sum.

Read about the project here and here, and support them by pre-ordering the album, if you think this sounds like a good idea!

Jazz and Nick Drake have been tried before, just check out Brad Mehldau´s versions (see "River Man" on YouTube).

Clinamen

Oh, another album with Arve Henriksen is out here, so far without lots of fuzz being made about it!
On "Clinamen"  (Off/Rat Records 2010) we hear Giovann Di Domenico (keyb, electronics), Arve Henriksen (tp, voc, electronics) and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (dr, perc).
I guess Arve Henriksen fans will recognize sounds from his solo albums and works with Supersilent here, as Henriksen is doing some falsetto singing, talking and whistling ("Hyrje" og "Vatos") in addition to his trumpet playing.
I hereby confess that before this I knew nothing about Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (worked with  Jim O´Rourke and Otomo Yoshihide) and Giovanni Di Domenico (played in "The Crappy Mini Band"!).

The album has it´s heavy and monotonous moments ("Idiot Glee"), but the music is mostly slow and open, and it´s a real album too! Play the whole record and you are rewarded with the two beautiful tracks "Fanno il Deserto e lo chiamano Pace" and "Clinamen" at the end.

The word "clinamen" seems to have been used to describe both atoms and authors, as you may read in  Wikipedia.

Ghetto Stars

Robert Wyatt and Stuff is joining in on the countdown to the release of Tricky's new album "Mixed Race" 29th of October (Domino Records). Hey, I'm getting dizzy here, it's out already is it? Check out the post on the terrific "Murder Weapon" too, and then enjoy the new video "Ghetto Stars".

Wongraven

I think this is the first blog post on wine here, and I promise not to take it much further out into the dangerous landscapes of alcohol. Anyway, i just had to post this metal wine!
Sigurd Wongroven from the black metal band Satyricon has developed a Barolo wine together with  Luca Roagna from Piedmont (I just pretend to know anything about wines here, but I hope you were a bit impressed?).
I came home from the wine store today with a 3 liter box of Wongraven Alleanja Langhe Rosso 2009, with a sweet little devil on the box (they sell this wine bottled too), and the taste was not bad. They even claim it´s fit for drinking with food!
I will not be so mean as to joke about a metallic aftertaste here, but just link to some background music.

There is also  Wongraven Unione Barolo 2006, probably much better, at least considering the price.
Well, enough rock and roll for today.

Soft Machine Original Album Classics

The five  Soft Machine albums  3, 4, 5, 6, 7 have been released as  an "Original Album Classics" box (Columbia/Sony 2010), just as they were, with nothing extra added (as far as I have seen).

The albums were released during the period  1970 - 1973, and are well worth a listen. Robert Wyatt is on  3 ( a must have!) and 4 as you all know I´m sure, but should you be among the few ones who own none of these albums, I suggest you put the box on your wish list for Christmas.

More info on the box and the albums  over at Prog Archives and Calyx.

Joe McPhee & Ingebrigt Håker Flaten

Joe McPhee (sax) and Ingebrigt Håker Flaten´s "Blue Chicago Blues" ( Not Two 2010) is out there to grab.
These guys have played together in The Thing, and the album is so great! We don´t get standard blues numbers here, but it´s blue enough. Listen to the howling  "Requiem for an empty heart", with McPhee sing-playing the saxophone, the whirling "The shape of blues to come", with Flaten using the bow and the sad final number, with the nice title, "Legend of the three blind moose"!
Almost too cheap on iTunes!

Joe McPhee has recorded lots of duo albums, among others "Tomorrow came today" with Paal Nilssen-Love (Smalltown 2008), so when  Mats Gustafsson  hopefully get´s his duo recording with McPhee, all the fine men of The Thing have got their own.

The Last Hurrah

HP Gundersen is a countrymusician and well known talent hunter from Bergen. His new projects are based on what he calls "drone pop", and if he is not lying,  The Last Hurrah (video) will be released on Rune Grammofon i January 2011.
Here is another one called "dronepopsymfoni" recorded at the small club Nøsteboden, and Gunderen even had Jon Irabagon over to play "drone jazz".  I missed out on that concert, but would be interested to hear from anyone who was there.

This is pretty far from sunn o))) and such bands, but check out Wikipedia for more on drone music.

Zanussi Five

What a great band Zanussi Five is! Saturday evening, me and a couple of other old guys, got to see them at the student´s jazz club in Bergen, in a house almost packed with young students. The band taught us a lesson on energetic, well arranged jazz with lots of room for improvisation.
These fine gentlemen played: Per Zanussi (b), Kjetil Møster (sax), Jørgen Mathiesen (sax), Eirik Hegdal (sax) and Gard Nilssen (dr).  I thought I heard some Soft Machine inspiration in there, but it might have been the beer of course.  Anyway, check them out on YouTube, where someone posted a video from yesterday´s concert. I think the tune is "Body and Zeuhl" from Zanussi Fives´quite new and quite fine album "Ghost Dance".
The band left the stage after playing a hot Fela Kuti song as an encore.

Zanussi Five have released three albums so far (as far as I know):
"Zanussi Five" (Moserobie, 2005), "Alborado" (Moserobie, 2006) and "Ghost Dance" (Moserobie, 2010).
On the first two albums Per Zanussi (b), Kjetil Møster (sax), Rolf-Erik Nystrøm (sax), Eirik Hegdal (sax) and Per Oddvar Johansen (dr) are playing, while Jørgen Mathisen replaces Møster and Gard Nilssen replaces Johansen on "Ghost Dance".

A new Hamlet?

This  beautiful (unsigned) stencil popped up in Bergen this week. On a legal wall too! "To be with you...Or not to be with you...".
More pictures here.

Spectral Voices

Robert Wyatt and Ros Stephen are interviewed on the  Wyatt/Atzmon/Stephen-album "For the ghosts within" in Jazzwise ("Spectral Voices", November 2010, p 28-29).

Wyatt says he was inspired by Julie London and Peggy Lee, and on the track "What a wonderful world": "Ah, that´s the most avant-garde thing I´ve ever done. I didn´t want it to be ironic".
There are no plans for another Wyatt release right now, but there are ideas lying around. "I wait for them to cohere rather than trying to bash them together for the sake of making a record".
That´s OK! We´ll wait.

I guess you have all read this already, but please excuse me. The magazine arrives in Norway weeks after the UK release, and the price is usually around three times higher too!

Seven sessions on a milk sea

Visit Brian Eno´s "Small craft on a milk sea" site. He will post seven session videos with Brian Eno,  John Hopkins and Leo Abrahams.

No embedding allowed, so you won´t find them here.

Hild Sofie Tafjord

Hild Sofie Tafjord, well known from Spunk and Fe-mail, and mentioned several times in this blog, played at Krakow´s Unsound Festival last month. Here she is with Anna Zaradny.
I thought you all needed some noise now.

Emptying my in box

Robert Wyatt Démons et Vermeil (Liberation 8 November 2010).
Robert Wyatt and the need to classify (A blog supreme 5 November 2010).
For the ghosts within (Soundlab 11 October 2010).
Jazza festival review (Guardian 14 October 2010)
Robert Wyatt & Gilad Atzmon in Haaretz (Creative-i 15 October 2010).
Haunted by ghosts (Haaretz 15 October 2010).
Critic´s Coice (NYT 25 October 2010).
For the ghosts within (Washington City Paper  22 October).
Pierre Bastien: The man who makes mekano sing (Guardian 18 October).
Kenny Wheeler: Quiet man on the cutting edge (Guardian 14 October 2010).

I sneak in an extra reference from 9 November 2010:
A great review of "...for the Ghosts Within" from Pop Matters.

DOLK at an exhibition

Street artist DOLK is represented in an exhibition happening right now, showing Bergen artists.
Here we may even see how he makes his stencils.

Please visit my DOLK set on Flickr too.

Comicoperando 2011

Three concerts of a partially renewed Comicoperando (A tribute to the music of Robert Wyatt) have been announced for next Spring (Thanks to Alessandro!):

Dagmar Krause - lead vocals
Annie Whitehead - trombone and backing vocals
Karen Mantler - lead vocals, hammond b3 and harmonica
Michel Delville - guitars and backing vocals
John Edwards - double bass
Chris Cutler - drums

May 18th: Zürich, Rote Fabrik
www.rotefabrik.ch
May 19th: Amsterdam, Bimhuis
www.bimhuis.com
May 22nd: Victoriaville, Fimav
www.fimav.qc.ca

Still available: May 10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17, 2011

Robert Wyatt vinyl reissues

Robert Wyatt´s solo albums will be reissued by Domino (not much news on their site yet), and  Pitchfork already reviewed them. I´m starting to get a bit dizzy here. Is it really two years since we got some of the albums on vinyl from Domino the previous time? Yes it is! I´m not sure if I have to buy these albums again, owning several versions already ("have to" may be discussed of course), but it´s soon Christmas I hear, so let´s just see what happens!

Here is the schedule  (taken from  here and here, probably with European and US dates):

November 2 or 9, 2010

Rock Bottom (1974)

Ruth is Stranger Than Richard (1975)

Nothing Can Stop Us (1981)

Old Rottenhat (1985)

Dondestan (1991/1998)

November 16 or 22, 2010

Schleep (1997)

EPs (CD only) (1998)

Cuckooland (2003)

Theatre Royal Drury Lane (2008)

Over at Strong Comet they say that "Each LP will come with a full-album art slipcase compact disc" too, but the new albums will be limited to 2000 copies each.

Small craft on a milk sea

These days I am enjoying the new Brian Eno album, and also this fantastic interview! Check out his comments on copyright and illegal downloading!

You all know this already, but the album is a mix of ambient, electronica and instrumental pop/rock, partly made as a soundtrack it is said. Make your own images while listening. The album is released on Warp, and count John Hopkins and Leo Abrahams in here too.

Listening to "Small craft on a milk sea" also made me listen repeatedly (again!) to Brian Eno´s: "Another day on earth" (Hannibal 2005) and David Byrne & Brian Eno´s: "Everything that happens will happen today" (Todomundo 2008). Two vocal pop albums of the best kind! Lovely stuff!

Grenager/Jernberg og 1982

A short report from a Bergen double concert again! This time with Lene Grenager (cello) and Sofia Jernberg (vocal), and 1982.

I bet I already called Lene Grenager (Lemur, Spunk) Norway´s toughest cello player, but Swedish Sofia Jernberg was a new name to me (my fault completely!). She had a fantastic voice and voice control, and the cello and vocal improvisations were hard to believe. Impressed!
Their album "Crochet" (Olof Bright 2009), sounds good too (after one listening only, I have to admit).

1982 is Nils Økland (fiddles and violins), Sigbjørn Apeland (harmonium, organ) and Øyvind Skarbø (drums). They did a great chamber-folk-improv set under very difficult conditions, the reason being a very loud Salsa course next door!
I might stop telling you to please check out their album soon (see link), but I won´t promise anything.

Oren Ambarchi

My Tuesday concert in Bergen this week was with the Australian Oren Ambarchi. Even if I afterwards realized that he has worked with (among others) Evan Parker, John Zorn and Sunn o))), I had to ask a bit around, to find out was going to happen. A nice person calmed me down, by telling me this was going to be some "incredibly beautiful noise"! And he was right too! Ambarchi built sound sculptures and painted soundscapes, making some kind of mixture between ambient and noise music, by using guitar, pedals and loads of electronics. The room was really shaking for a while, but the sound was mostly fine as long as we wore ear plugs (John Hegre was sound master, mind you). Great, beautiful, fascinating and so on!

Frode Gjerstad News

Today I´m stealing some interesting concert news from Frode Gjerstad´s site (the link to the REKNES album is mine):
"Bobby Bradford, cornet, Paal Nilssen-Love, Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten and I will do a little tour in November.We will play Poznan, Poland, 12-11-2010 London, 13-11-2010 (London jazz festival) and Oslo 14-11-2010 (Kampen Jazz). We played together as a quartet at the Molde festival in 2008 where we also recorded the concert and released it as “REKNES”. This is the first tour we do together".

Re-Arranging the 20th Century

Gilad Atzmon & the OHE, Re-Arranging the 20th Century, Video Art by Yeast from Gilad Atzmon on Vimeo.

Yeast made a video for Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble´s "Re-Arranging the 20th Century". The opening voice is of course Robert Wyatt´s, and the band is filmed on stage at the London Jazz Festival in 2005.