Rock Bottom

Since I link to almost all things Robert Wyatt in this here blog, I might as well give you this one too. The Bergen Public Library invite musicians, and other folks lurking in the musical environment of Bergen, to recommend their favorite album. They even invited yours truly, and my choice was "Rock Bottom". Surprise?

It´s in Norwegian of course, but you all know the essence of this piece on "Rock Bottom", since you have read it already, on the record sleeves and in the magazines where I stole my info.
A Google Translate might give you a laugh though, and even make you realize that my English is not THAT bad!

Mølstad and Holmlander

Børre Mølstad and Per-Åke Holmlander improvising at Blow Out in Oslo earlier this August.
Both of them have visited my blogs several times already, Mølstad with No, Gutvik, Sekstett and Circulasione Totale Orchestra, and Holmlander with Resonance Ensemble and Chicago Tentet.

The video is made by Helen Petts, and make sure you visit her YouTube channel for more videos!

Cosa Brava live

Cosa Brava live in August 2011. Don't forget the album "Ragged Atlas" (Intakt 2010)!

The musicians (copied from michaelzvid) :
Fred Frith -- electric guitar, vocals
Carla Kihlstedt -- violin, vocals
Zeena Parkins -- keyboard, melodica, vocals
Matthias Bossi -- drums, vocals
Shahzad Ismaily -- electric bass
The Norman Conquest -- sound manipulation

Slagr

Slagr is a Norwegian trio with Anne Hytta (hardanger fiddle), Sigrun Eng (cello) and Amund Sjølie Sveen (vibraphone).
They play modern folk music, and released the album "Straum, stille" (Ozella Music 2011) this spring. The album title (Straum = flow, stream, stille= still, quiet, tranquil) and track titles like "First frost", "Quiet rain" and "Drifting out of sleep", describe the music very well. We hear slow flowing and dream like soundscapes, and it is oh, so beautiful!
Anne Hytta composed most of the music, but there are probably room for improvisations here too.

Put it on your record shelf next to albums by Sigbjørn Apeland, Nils Økland and 1982. Nils Økland produced "Straum, stille". You may shop over at Ozella, but I still can not find it at eMusic or iTunes.
I will make place on my shelf for their first album ("Solaris", NorCD 2007) too.

Cover: Arvid Sveen/Amund Sjølie Sveen.

Soft Machine live and on TV 1967

Soft Machine - Live On Palais Des Sports - 1967... by Tushratta

Soft Machine on the French Bouton Rouge in 1967. Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge and Kevin Ayers.

Splashgirl: Pressure

Splashgirl is Andreas Stensland Løwe (piano, electronics), Jo Berger Myhre (bass) and Andreas Lønmo Knudsrød (trommer). Just order their new album "Pressure" (2011) right away! This is their second album on Hubro, and it´s melodious, varied and parts of the album are extremely beautiful (but still not too sweet!). According to their home page Splashgirl play "their own music inspired by any number of musical genres".
Guest musicians on the album are Juhani Silvola (g), Erik Johannesen (tb), Martin Taxt (tuba), Lasse Passage Nøsted (tape feedback, field recordings) and Mari Kvien Brunvoll (voc). Guitarist Silvola is nodding towards Earth more than once, and the Earth and Sun O))) producer Randal Dunn has been mixing too.

You might want to read some real reviews, like the ones over at AAJ and The Jazz Mann, but it´s really a waste of time

As if this is not enough, Hubro also released a split LP with Splashgirl and Huntsville. Only 250 copies made, and you have to fly over to Hubro to shop.

Documentary on Brian Eno

"Brian Eno 1971 - 1977. The man who fell to earth" (2011) is said to be the first ever documentary on Eno!? Well, here it is, more than two hours long, and focusing on the years 1971 - 1977.
A fascinating picture is drawn of the "non musician", who entered the rock scene with Roxy Music, stealing too much of the attention from lead singer and song writer Brian Ferry, was later connected to the minimalist and ambient scene, work with among others Robert Fripp, Cluster and David Bowie, and started the label Obscure, presenting ten albums with artists like Gavin Bryars, Harold Budd and David Toop.

Much time is spent on Eno´s fantastic "pop" albums from this period, "Here come the warm jets" (1973), "Taking Tiger Mountain" (1974), "Another green world" (1975) and "Before and after science" (1977). "Another green world" is being hailed as the master piece by lots of people, but I think it´s really hard to choose! I want them all on my best of lists.

Music journalists, biographers and some musicians are talking heads in the film (and they talk a lot!), but I´m sad to say that a well spoken man like Eno is only heard talking for about eight second.
No, he did not cooperate on this project!

I would have liked to hear more music and less talking, but still this is well worth a watch!

Les sons du nuage

Sofia Jernberg (voc), Xavier Charles (clar) and David Stackenäs (g) live at Energimølla, during Kongsberg Jazz Festival 2011 (Norway).

Five years of Wyatting

Come join me in Norway today! We are having soft drinks and cakes, celebrating five years of Wyatting!

Violeta

The other day I got a very nice mail from Chile, telling me about the new movie "Violeta", about the singer Violeta Parra (1917 - 1967). The movie is based on a book written by her son Ángel.

Now, Violeta Parra is worth both a movie and a blog post in her own right, but I got the mail partly because we can make a Robert Wyatt link too. In 1980 Rough Trade released the Robert Wyatt single "Arauco" (V. Parra)/"Caimanera", and both the songs are also on the album "Nothing can stop us" (Rough Trade 1982) (and other places too, look for yourselves!).

Listen to Violeta Parra´s original version here.

The Sound of Dead Languages

The Sound of Dead Languages by phonophani

I already mentioned Espen Sommer Eide (Phonophani), and his work with the skolt sami language. He recently uploaded a mini album called "The Sound of Dead Languages" on SoundCloud. Language made into music.

Follow Espen Sommer Eide´s blog "Eyes on your instruments".

Radio Has No Future

In 2009 i tried to get Lord Kelvins "Dances in the smoke" shortlisted for the the best thermodynamic release of the year. Finally the young physics students Eirik Hegdal (saxophones, clarinet), Erik Johannessen (trombone) and Gard Nilssen (drums, vibraphone) have finished their new project called "Radio Has No Future" (Gigafon 2011), with their own compositions and receiving best grades again. Cool arrangements, varied music that you may just enjoy or even tap your right foot to, and nice titles again!

How about "Magnetoresistance", "The Transatlantic Cable", "Molecular Dynamics" and "December 17th 1907"? Now do your homework and read the Wikipedia article on Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) and see if you can recognise more titles there, although I'm quite sure Hegdal, Johannessen and Nilssen have read the collected works of (and on) Lord Kelvin.

Cover by Rune Nergaard.

Monolithic live at Blå

Michael Francis Duch

We have had bass man Michael Francis Duch in this blog before, both solo and with (among others) Lemur and En En En, but today he will play 2 x solo. First we get parts of an improvisation from The Molde International Jazz Festival 2011, where he did a double bill with Kjetil Møster, and then a piece by George Brecht, performed in Illsvika (Norway) August 2011.

Blow Out

KEN VANDERMARK AND PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE DUO / CONTROL #1 from jadd association on Vimeo.


Some days ago I had a post on autumn festivals to look out for in Norway, and forgot Oslo's  Blow Out festival (17 - 20 August). Several of this blog's regular visitors are present, like Ken Vandermark, Paal Nilssen-Love, Lasse Marhaug and Sidsel Endresen, and there are lots of other great musicians too! Check out the Swedish singer Sofia Jernberg if you can. I heard her with Lene Grenager in Bergen last autumn. What a great voice!
The illustrating videos today show Ken Vandermark in two sax-drum-duos. Vandermark with Paal Nilssen-Love in the spring of 2010 and with Tim Daisy this summer.

Khyam Allami

Isn´t it about time for some oud? Iraqi Khyam Allami, who lives in London now, recently released the album "Resonance/Dissonance" (Nawa Recordings 2011). I don´t know if this is all composed material, or if it´s partly improvised, but the music is beautiful anyway!
Me, being an untrained oud listener, enjoy parts of this album as a kind of exotic ambient, and that´s meant as no offence! I downloaded the music, but be smarter and get the CD, and you will get a DVD too (see some of it below).

 

Nils Petter Molvær videos

Expect a new Nils Petter Molvær album this autumn, produced by Stian Westerhus. On the first video here we see Nils Petter Molvær Trio at Jazz in Marciac (August 2011), with Stian Westerhus and Erland Dahlen. On the other one Molvær is playing in a duo with Jan Bang in Ostrava (July 2011) (look for more clips on YouTube).

Fred Frith videos

Michel Doneda and Fred Frith from NEXMAP on Vimeo.

Double Take on Fred Frith from NEXMAP on Vimeo.

Here you have two Fred Frith videos, recorded in 2009, and uploaded on Vimeo by NEXMAP.
First a duo with the French sax player Michel Doneda, then a solo set.

England´s Dreaming

The Classic Rock magazine, has six pages on the Canterbury scene in their August issue. (The issue might have been for sale for a long time already in the rest of the free world, but we are a bit slow up here in Norway). Paul Moody has written an OK piece, starting with the mother of all Canterbury bands, The Wilde Flowers, with Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Hugh Hopper, Brian Hopper, Mike Ratledge and Richard Sinclair.

His focus is on the people of the two bands that came directly out of The Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine and Caravan. I´m not sure if Moody interviewed Wyatt and the others recently, but Richard Sinclair claims Robert Wyatt was a 100% Canterbury man in the early days, even if he claims (as we know): "The "Canterbury scene" tag pisses me off. It was something a journalist made up in the 70s and it stuck."

 Visit Calyx for all things "Canterbury", and check out the Norwegian site The Polite Force too.

Jæ at the Blogotheque

JAE | Part 1 (Lest I Ever Waited / Jim's Place) | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
I have posted videos, and already told you to check out Jæ´s album "Balls and kittens, draught and strangling rain" (Hubro 2010), but I won´t promise that this is the last time. Here they are at the Blogotheque, and I still think this is very nice.

Robert Wyatt Interviewed in 1981

The interview is from the magazine Morocci Klung, September 1981.

Joëlle Léandre: Solo (Kadima Collective, 2011)

I am glad I heard Joëlle Léandre with SPUNK at this year´s  Molde International Jazz Festival,  and at the concert I grabbed a copy of the book "Solo" (originally in French in 2008), where Léandre speaks with journalist Franck Médioni.

We get Léandre´s thoughts on improvisation, her relationship with her instrument ("the tractor"!), the negative sides of studios and the positive sides of live playing, and the importance of playing the music of today ("No question of playing necrophilic music!"). We meet teachers and cooperators like Giaconti Scelzi, Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Maggie Nichols, William Parker and John Cage (se her sing and play Cage here), and a bunch of others, but she wants more women in her field of music ("Where are my sisters?").

Reading this book is like hearing the artist speak, so we get some repetitions and some abrupt jumps, but thats OK! The book is fine, and we also get a solo bass CD (recorded in 2005) and a DVD recorded at the Guelph Jazz Festival in 2009, so we may both hear and see Léandre play, and use her breath, voice and body language as extensions of the instrument.
Get the book at Kadima Collective and make sure you go to a concert when you can.

Here is a 40 minute long video from Konfrontationen 2011, where Joëlle Léandre plays both solo, and together with Marilyn Crispell, Isabelle Duthoit and Els Vandeweyer.

Autumn Festivals

Some late summer and autumn festivals to seek out in Norway:

Oslo Jazz Festival 15. - 20. August
Punkt in Kristiansand 1. - 3. September (Pictures from 2010)
Ultima in Oslo 8. - 17. September
Numusic/Nuart in Stavanger 22. September - 10. October
Ekko in Bergen 23. September - 1. October (Pictures from previous festivals)
Piksel in Bergen 17. - 20. November (Pictures from previous festivals)

Added 10. August:
Oh oh, I forgot the last ever HITS black metal festival in Bergen:
Hole In The Sky 24. - 27. August.

Oslo - Tokyo Connection

First you see (and hear!!) Paal Nilssen-Love, Jim O´Rourke and Lasse Marhaug, then Otomo Yoshihide and Lasse Marhaug live in Tokyo February 2011, at the Oslo -Tokyo Connection.

100 Copies

Don´t wait too long if you should happen to be interested in these albums. Only 100 copies made of each. Try desperately at shops like: Looop, Tiger and Robot.

Paal Nilssen-Love/Lasse Marhaug: "No Combo" (Pica 028 (in cooperation with PNL), 2011) was recorded live at the New Combo Club in Kukuoka (Japan) in February 2011. Music on one side, art on the other. The artist might be Lasse Marhaug, but no info is given.

The drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen just released his first solo album! The music was recorded in November 2010, the cover is designed by Lasse Marhaug and there seems to be no record company behind this album.

How do they sound? I don´t know, my house is invaded by carpenters and other handy men, and I had to hide my record player. But who cares as long as the covers and designs are cool, and the number of copies are limited?!

Ivor Cutler stencils

Ivor Culter 
Originally uploaded by STEWY'S STENCILS

In May Stewy handed out free Robert Wyatt stencils in London. Now he is at it again, with another one of this blog´s favorites, Ivor Cutler!
Twelve portraits of Cutler on cardboard was placed on Brick Lane (London) 05/08/11.

Emo Albino

Emo Albino is Ivar Grydeland and Ingar Zach, the guys behind the record company SOFA, and known from bands like Huntsville and Dans Les Arbres. Their second duo album "Lady Lord" is now out there for you to grab.
In my (not too advanced!) way of describing music, I usually end up calling this kind of music soundscapes, ambient or soundtracks. What you get is a slow flowing, dark river of crackling improvisations. I guess Grydeland and Zach play synths and drums, and also play with electricity and prepared instruments of different kinds, from music shops, kitchens and carpentry workshops? I downloaded the music, and their site only says they play "music".

I still love to own CDs and LPs, and Clare Cooper´s covers of the albums on SOFA are great, but when I could get the whole album (one track) for 8 Norwegian kroner at the shop Platekompaniet, I just couldn´t resist. The one track - one price policy seems to work over at Amazon too.

Fair or not, you may get a damned fine album for next to nothing.

Third

Burning Shed (Canterbury Scene) have released Soft Machine´s "Third" on 180 g audiophile vinyl. "Third" was originally released in 1970, and this is where we find Robert Wyatt´s composition "Moon in June".

Elton Deans Ninesense Suite

Just a short recommendation for you Canterbury fans today, about a great jazz album. It might even be free jazz. The music on "Elton Dean´s Ninesense Suite" (Jazzwerkstatt, 2011) was recorded live in the early eighties by two quite different bands.

And even if track number one ("Natal"), played by Harry Beckett (tp), Harry Miller (b) and Louis Moholo (dr) might be the most inspired piece here (if i had to rate them), you may take the Canterbury quiz on "Ninesense Suite". In addition to the already mentioned gentlemen Beckett, Miller and Moholo, the musicians are Elton Dean (sax), Keith Tippett (p), Alan Skidmore (sax), Mark Charig (tp), Nick Evans (tb) and Radu Malfatti (tb).

Before you start googling Canterbury artists, check the musicians section over at Calyx, and read the review at Free Jazz.

A nice one!

The Wasted Call

A filmed version Ivor Cutler and Phyllis April King´s "The Wasted Call", from "Jammy Smears" (1976)!
Info on the film on YouTube.

Hearts for Oslo after the murders