Tom et Mia

I know next to nothing about this, but it seems to be about a CD-book project, fine young school kids and John Greaves is singing. That's good enough for me, but I'll copy the info from YouTube for your pleasure:
"création d'un livre-disque avec 116 collégiens.
projet conçu par géraldine Aliberti et Vaidehi Nota
Avec : Artistes :
Géraldine Aliberti, Anne-Lise Boutin, Johann Molitor, Khalid K, Olivier Salon
Musiciens :
chant : Rosemary Standley (Moriarty) & John Greaves
instruments : Illya Amar, Antoine Berjeaut, Boris Boublil, Aurélie Branger, Maeva Le berre, Sébastien Miglianico, Séverine Morfin"

John Cale & Band Live

Now listen kids, in the old days we had almost no rock and pop on the telly! At least true for Norway. That´s why we were very happy when our NRK started broadcasting the German Rockpalast shows in the 70s and 80s (yes that is 1970s and -80s for you all). Run on over here to see who played.

The album "John Cale & Band Live" (MIG 2010) passed below my radar last year. Here we get one CD with John Cale and band from 1984 (David Lichtestein (dr), Andy Heermans (bass), David Young (g)), and one CD with John Cale solo from 1983, both recorded at Rockpalast.
This album is a real treat for Cale fans, with different versions of songs from the early solo albums , and the usual cover songs ("Streets of Laredo", "Heartbreak Hotel"). The band album is aggressive in front of a rowdy audience, and the solo album is more relaxed of course (?).

If you have not heard John Cale´s albums "Vintage Violence", "Paris 1919", "Fear", "Slow Dazzle" and "Helen of Troy", please check them out before or after you listen to the Rockpalast recordings. Also look for another live solo performance called "Fragments of a rainy season" (1992). A great album, and I´m glad I attended Cale´s concert in Oslo on that tour!

Lol Coxhill: Ear of Beholder

Lol Coxhill´s album "Ear of Beholder" was originally released as a double LP on Dandelion in 1971, and has been out on CD too (first (?) on See for Miles in 1994).
A remastered, double CD edition is now out on Esoteric Recordings (27 June 2011). Extra tracks on this version are the A- and B sides of two singles released by Coxhill and David Bedford in 1971 and 1972.

Robert Wyatt plays drums on one track ("A collective improvisation").

Let´s celebrate by going swimming with Lol.

Oslo - Tokyo Connection

Paal Nilssen-Love and Lasse Marhaug visited Tokyo this February(2011), to represent Oslo at the "Oslo  - Tokyo Connection" at the club SuperDeluxe.
Now hold on to your toupees, here comes Nilssen-Love with Akira Sakata (alto) and Michiyo Yagi (koto) and then with Lasse Marhaug (electrickery) and Nisennenmondai drummer Sayaka Himeno.

Stanley Brinks and The Kaniks

Any fans of Stanley Brinks (from Herman Dune) visiting? He has recorded an album called "Jamaica Inn" at a lighthouse outside Egersund in Norway. It´s released on the label Hype City (2011). Musicians are: Stanley Brinks, Erlend Aasland, Olav Christer Rossebø, Staale Holgersen, Ingemund Askeland and Kjetil Lundø (they play all kinds of string instrument and trombone).
The music is a mix of all kinds of styles, like bluegrass, country, calypso, jazz and probably other styles too, and (this may scare some of you!) you will probably start humming, or even sing along to the album. Both LP and CD available from
Robot.

I heard them do a midday concert in Sandnes (Norway) a couple of days ago, and they were magnificent, this time with Clemence Freschard in the band too. The songs sounded even better live,and Stanley Brinks was a sight, walking around with a cup of coffee, sitting down at the tables singing, and even emptying a vase when thirsty (not to be recommended I think).

Phonophani - "Nold" (Live)

Phonophani - "Nold" (Live) from Material Vision on Vimeo.

Phonophani (Espen Sommer Eide) Live from the 2011 Présences Électronique Festival, Paris. Video and sound by François Bonnet INA/GRM.
Amazing!

Seasons They Change

I have hardly read a music book with so many artists I have never heard about, but I did it! The music: Acid-, psychedelic-, alternative-, avant. or freak folk? You name it, but be a bit careful with "freak folk" (some artists don't like that).

If you are more than a little interested in music in said areas, "Seasons they change. The story of acid and psychedelic folk" (JawBone 2010) by Jeanette Leech, is probably the book for you. Most of you know Joanna Newsom, Vashiti Bunyan and Devendra Banhart, but in this book you get the full story of several waves of alternative folk music, mainly in USA and Great Britain. Leech is also visiting other countries (I never knew "Krautfolk"!) and even Norwegian Oriental Sunshine (with Ozark Mountain Daredevil Rune Walle) is offered some space "Dedicated to the birds we love" (1970).

The book is interesting and quite good, but it is a little bit of too much of everything for this reader. More on fewer artists, would have helped me at least, but the book really made me want to check out several releases! I still have not seen the movie "The wicker man" (starring Christopher Lee),or heard the soundtrack, but I bought my first album with The Holy Modal Rounders!

The index is fine, but I really would have liked a full discography here!

Tou Tower

Tou Scene in Stavanger celebrate their 10th year, and yesterday they decided to do a guitar overkill! Alf Terje Hana and Nils Terje Asheim put 48 guitar players on a scaffolding tower and made them play (in front of Blu's fine art).

Sigbjørn Apeland also built a tower at the Borealis festival in Bergen in 2009 , but he chose organ players.

Optical Substance

Kjetil Husebø uploaded several videos from the festival Tape to Zero (Oslo, May 2011).
Here is Optical Substance, with Kjetil Husebø (keyboards, electronics), Terje Evensen (drums, electronics), Alexander Grieg (bass) and Steinar Værnes (trumpet, electronics).

Dans Les Arbres

I think we need some slow and quiet improv today!

Dans Les Arbres (Xavier Charles, Ivar Grydeland, Christian Wallumrød and Ingar Zach) played St. Petersburg 29th May 2011, and you may find even more videos from that concert on YouTube.

They will also be performing at the Molde International Jazz Festival 22nd July and Kristiansand's PUNKT Festival 2nd September 2011.

Hairy street art

Oh yes, it's illegal and messy, but on this wall in Bergen we have a quite nice collection of street art, made by MIR, C215 (my favorite stencil in Bergen) and the same(?)artist who made this one.

Music in the clouds

It's raining more and more music from the clouds these days. I find interesting stuff on SoundCloud all the time, stuff uploaded by the artist or the record company, and of course tracks uploaded by people with a pretty loose attitude to copyright rules.

We'll let Maja Ratkje and Lasse Marhaug represent the artists, and Miasmah the record labels (listen to all of Kreng's fine new album).

[maja solveig kjelstrup ratkje - Joy] by n66x

Marhaug: Feed the Earth and Master It (2010) by Marhaug

Kreng - Grimoire by miasmah

If you are looking for some Robert Wyatt in the cloud, you will find tracks from official Wyatt albums as well as obscure cover songs. Check out "Alifib" by Cyann & Ben and Rokia Draore and Remi Dumoulin.

Cyann & Ben : Alifib (FD session - Robert Wyatt cover) by fdshow

Rokia Traore and Remi Dumoulin - Alifib by FM18Z

And then buy some music!

Canterbury podcasts

I have never been a regular listener to podcasts, not even Canterbury Soundwaves I am sorry to say, but no big deal, the archive is on their blog. Check it out.

Episode number 8 is out now, with lots of Steve Hillage.

Matana Roberts

The alto sax player Matana Roberts just released "Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Coleur Libres" (Constellation 2011). This is an edited version of a live recording of a concert played in front of a small audience (30 persons!) in Montreal.
The music is based on a piece Roberts has been working on for several years, using  storytelling, songs, video and jazz in various forms. She is cited like this in the press info: "I have deep interest in old, antique objects of of human existence, mostly because of the variety of story that can be created, factual or not, from the possibility of their being. This project is a combination of those interests as well as my delight in musical communication, ritual adornment, and the genealogical 20th century of Africans in America".

The music is heartbreakingly intense (sorry if my English is too flowering  now), being part blues, part free jazz, improv, hymns and what have you!  In an interview with "Burning Ambulance" Matana Roberts says she wrote the words by: "..imaginging myself as a slave woman telling this story". On  "Libation for Mr. Brown: Bid em in..." we are at a slave auction, and the fantastic last track is called "How much would you cost?". This is strong stuff, and recommended listening!

I shopped at eMusic, but the music is possible to get on a double 10" too, sounding a bit cooler.

A follow-up will probably be released, sounding something like what you now may hear over at  "A blog supreme".

A list of musicians, taken from Constellation's site:
Matana Roberts: reeds/voice
Gitanjali Jain: voice
David Ryshpan: piano/organ
Nicolas Caloia: cello
Ellwood Epps: trumpet
Brian Lipson: bass trumpet
Fred Bazil: tenor sax
Jason Sharp: baritone sax
Hraïr Hratchian: doudouk
Xarah Dion: prepared guitar
Marie Davidson: violin
Josh Zubot: violin
Lisa Gamble: musical saw
Thierry Amar: bass
Jonah Fortune: bass
David Payant: drums/vibes

Can't Stop To Boogie

"Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music", says Wikipedia.

We haven't boogied too much in this blog, but some weeks ago I attended a fine concert with Koboku Senju, and they do not play boogie (!), but I bought a CD from the sales table there. The title "Can't stop to boogie" (P-Vine (JP) 2011) is quite descriptive of course, but I thought what the hell, let's boogie! The link between Koboku Senju and boogie is guitar player Tetuzi Akiyama. Here he plays with John Hanes, Dan Schwartz, Barry Melton and Henry Kaiser.

No it's not a pure party album, and I was prepared for that with Akiyama and Henry Kaiser in the band (sorry, the other guys are new to me), but it still is a lot of fun with some twisted blues, rock and country, and they even manage to drag some experimental stuff in here too with "The Derek Bailey Boogie"!
They claim that John Lee Hooker (the man with album titles like "Endless Boogie") could dig what Bailey was doing, but asked "But does he know how to boogie?".

I'm not sure how wide distribution this record is getting, so you have to check on the net yourselves, or visit some concerts. I'm going to see  Koboku Senju again at the Punkt festival in September.

Ode aan Robert Wyatt

Orchestre National de Jazz recently played  "Around Robert Wyatt" in Amsterdam, at least I believe so! Most of this is in Dutch.

How About Free Jazz?

How about free jazz? part one from Thomas Loyens on Vimeo.



How about free jazz? part two from Thomas Loyens on Vimeo.

How about almost two hours of experimental musicians who talk about just that, making experimental music? That is what you get if you watch Thomas Loyens´ videos on Vimeo.

These guys talk: Fred Lonberg-Holm, Ken Vandermark, Jim Black, Andrew D'Angelo, Trevor Dunn, Teun Verbruggen, Steven Cassiers, Ben Slujis og Nicholas Kummert.

Maja Ratkje at Norway Fest

Norwegia Fest is happening in  Gdansk (Poland) these days, and the opening concert was by Maja Ratkje.
On the fest's site we may read that "It turns out that Norwegian culture is not only about trolls, Vikings, black metal and Ibsen". What do you mean? "Only"??

Robert and Alfie on Domino Radio

Domino Radio has been transmitting for one week now, and all programs are archived. I don't know for how long they will be there, but pop on over to hear Robert Wyatt and Alfie talk and play records for some 70 minutes. The program stops a bit abrubtly, so it might have been a bit longer  (I did not hear the original broadcast)?

Stian Westerhus and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra

I'm really looking forward to the Molde International Jazz Festival now (18 - 23 July). Here is a video with (most of) the gang Stian Westerhus will bring along to Molde, and several of them are playing other concerts during the festival too.

The Stian Westerhus gang:
Maja Ratkje - vocal, electronics
Mats Gustafsson – saxophones
Kjetil Møster – saxophones
Hild Sofie Tafjord - horn, electronics
Erik Johannesen – trombone
Bjørnar Habbestad - flute, electronics
Ola Kvernberg - violin, viola
Bergmund Waal Skaslien – viola
Michael Duch – bass
Øystein Moen – keyboards
Kenneth Kapstad – drums
Stian Westerhus – guitar
Kyrre Heldal Karlsen – lights
Tor Breivik – sound
Producer: Eirik Hegdal

FIRE! with Jim O'Rourke

Rune Grammofon recently released their second album with FIRE!. "Unreleased?" (2011) is a great album, with intense sax playing by Mats Gustafsson.  FIRE! is Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone, fender rhodes, electronics), Johan Bertling (electric bass) and Andreas Werlin (drums, percussion), and this time they are joined by Jim O'Rourke (guitar, synthesizer, harmonica) too. The music was recorded in Tokyo in September 2010.

Cover (as usual) by Kim Hiorthøy.

Since I'm always a bit short in my descriptions, you better run over to the  The Liminal to get convinced. I'm not that crazy about Jim O'Rourke (but have nothing against him, mind you) as the writer over there, but as a big fan of Mats Gustafsson I congratulate him with the  Nordic Council Music Prize 2011!

I got myself a new Robert Wyatt stencil

I just had to show you my new Robert Wyatt stencil, even if I posted the same stencil  the day Stewy gave some away in London.

Let's celebrate with a Robert Wyatt interview,  made in connection with the release of "For the ghosts within" (Domino 2010).

SmiJin - with Robert Wyatt by NostalgiaOfTheFuture

Mixing blog posts

Seems like the blog is alive now, posting old blogposts as new ones.
Might be a new (too) exciting feature of blogger?

Kornstad and Håker Flaten

On the video you may see Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Håkon Kornstad play religious folk tunes in Strømø church, during the Drammen Sacred Festival in September 2010.

Håkon Kornstad recently did a solo concert  in the  Bellona environmentalists´office. It is produced by NRK (the Norwegian Broadcasting Co.), and you have to watch it (and I mean you have to do it!) over at their place, until I find an embed code at least.

The Unthanks: "Lullaby for Hamza"

I seem to have missed this version of Robert Wyatt and Alfreda Benge's "Lullaby for Hamza" by The Unthanks (found it over at Hibou, Anemone & Bear today). It was performed for The Lullaby Project at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds (more videos here). The original song is on "Cuckooland" (Domino 2003).

Kjetil Møster's one day tour

This year's Bergen International Festival is soon over, but Sunday's most busy musician must have been Bergen's own saxophone player Kjetil Møster (The Core, Ultralyd etc). I attended half of his Sunday tour, seeing two out of four concerts! Three concerts were parts of a series called "The sound of open houses" (my translation).

I was present at his concert at the Bergen Fire Station, where he played for fire men and regular audience. Møster described this music as industrial in a local newspaper, while the first concert of the day, which was held in a beautiful house with garden just outside town, made him play some eastern/asiatic elements.
Well of course, buildings and surroundings may influence the musician, and when he played from the balcony of an appartment in the afternoon sun, he chose more standard jazz for his 15 minutes long solo. The appartment owner's american flags and picture of Obama in the window may have played it's part too!

Someone posted a couple of not too good videos again. From the balcony here, and the fire station here.

MoonJune Celebrates Tenth Anniversary

Leonardo Pavkovic's record company MoonJune is celebrating it's tenth anniversary this month. If you are a prog fan, you should take a look. Cheap albums, and no postage in June! Some post Wyatt Soft Machine to be found too.

SPUNK at exhibitions

SPUNK recently played at Rom 8 in Bergen. This performance was filmed (in better quality than my videos!) and the videos from this performance are now exhibited at the gallery Knipsu. At the opening of the SPUNK exhibition, they played live via Skype, and it worked quite well too!
Musicians: Kristin Andersen (flute, trumpet), Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (vocals) and Lene Grenager (cello). (Hild Sofie Tafjord is still part of SPUNK (!), but she has been travelling.)
SPUNK also played a concert for invited guests at Hanne Borchgrevink's art exhibition for the Bergen International Festival. Video uploaded by Maja Ratkje.

The Old Grey Whistle Test

The first part of  "The Old Grey Whistle Test" 40th Anniversary Album (WMTV 2011) is released 6 June. This is a best of collection (?) of the music that was presented on this UK TV-show.
Robert Wyatt's "Shipbuilding" is on the collection.

This seems to be a collection of album versions, and not the versions played on the show (they never mimed, did they?), but you may still get DVDs.
Here is a YouTube  video with presenter Bob Harris.

Enslaved, Crimson, Zeppelin

Bergen's own metal heroes Enslaved played rock classics at an outdoor concert at the Henie Onstad Cultural Centre in Oslo in May. Here you get  King Crimson's "Red" and  "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin.
Oh yes! We need some rock now!

Stian Westerhus & Sidsel Endresen at Elbjazz

Last week Stian Westerhus and Sidsel Indresen played a great concert at Nattjazz in Bergen. Since then they have played at Elbjazz. Watch the video!