Forever young

"Forever Young" - a documentary on how rock & roll grew up, and got old and wrinkled, is on YouTube.

Interviews with Robert Wyatt, Richard Thompson and a bunch of other people.

Records you might like

OK, summer holiday is over for me, and here are some of the records I listened to. Want to check them out?

Atlanter: "Vidde" (Jansen Plateproduksjon 2013). Desert blues, delta blues and kraut (what??) from Jens Carelius, Arild Hammerø, Jonas Barsten Johnsen and Morten Kvam. One track at the bottom of the blog post.

Ellerry Eskelin: "Mirage" (Clean Feed 2013). Great music from Ellerry Eskelin (sax), Michael Formanek (b) and Susan Alcorn (pedal steel g).

Panzerpappa: "Astromalist" (Rune 2012). I have forgotten to mention the "new" Rune Grammofon album from Norway´s best Canterbury influenced band. Until now! Nice!

Petter O Hanna: "Rendition of a whisper" (Gigafon 2013). Strange and beautiful from Petter Vågan and Hanna Gjermundrød.

Akira Sakata and Nobuyasy Furuya: "Live at The Bitches Brew" (Solid Records 2011). Hot stuff! Any experts on Sakata visiting? I really don´t know where I should start in his discography. As mentioned earlier, I heard him for the first time at Moldejazz this summer, playing a fantastic concert with Johan Berthling and Paal Nilssen-Love.

Colin Stetson: "New history warfare vol.3: Too see more light" (Constellation 2013). Sax magic. And Justin Vernon from Bon Iver is on it too. Video on top here.

Trespass Trio + Joe McPhee: "Human Encore" (Clean Feed 2013). Oh my, beautiful and touching music. Will buy the two previous Trespass Trio albums (Küchen, Zanussi, Strid) right away!

Chris Watson: "In St Cuthbert's Time" (Touch 2013). Experience nature from your own sofa.

Falling Behind

I´m falling behind in this blog. So much great music is being played and released, that it´s almost too much!
I realized that I have hardly mentioned the new Richard Thompson album here, so I will cheat a bit, and just make a list of recommendations to catch up.

You know what I like, so please check these ones out right away, if you need some more great music that is!

AKODE: AKODE (Gaffer Records)
- Norwegians Johannesen, Høyer, Knedal Andersen with Alan Wilkinson very much alive in Sandnes (Norway)!

Charles Bradley: "Victim of love" (Daptone/Dunham)
- Powerful, hot soul.

Grand General: "Grand General" (Rune Grammofon)
- Prog-jazzrock with Ola Kvernberg on violin and viola.

Kristoffer Lo: "Anomie" (Gigafon)
- Slow, dark, spooky tuba music.

Roscoe Mitchell: "Duets with Tyshawn Sorey and Special Guest Hugh Ragin" (Wide Hive)
- Let´s cite the record company: "Frequently called an innovative genius, Roscoe has a remarkable ability to catch the improvisational spark with a practiced and methodical accuracy." Nice!

Phantom Orchard Orchestra: "Trouble in Paradise" (Tzadik)
- Beautiful experimental music with a.o. Maja Ratkje and Hild Sofie Tafjord.

Shuggie Otis: "Introducing" (Epic)
- Much talked about funky disco-soul. I found this one on Record Store Day (top picture).

Mark Solborg: "The Trees" (Ilk/The Orchard)
- Fantastic album from the Danish guitar player Solborg, with a.o. Evan Parker and Mats Eilertsen. Listen at bottom of blog post.

Splashgirl: "Field Day Ritual" (Hubro)
- Beautiful doom piano trio, with Eyvind Kang guesting.

Richard Thompson: "Electric" (Proper)
- Great rock-and-doom-and-gloom-folk. I need to see Thompson live again! Soon!

Electric Eye: Tangerine

Here is a new record company from Bergen: Klangkollektivet.

Check out the video for the new krautpsychsingle "Tangerine" from Electric Eye, being Øystein Braut (Alexandria Quartet, Dig Deeper - and leader of the band), Njål Clementsen (Megaphonic Thrift, The Low Frequency in Stereo), Anders Bjelland (Hypertext) and Øyvind Hegg-Lunde (Building Instrument and lots of impro and jazz cooperations).

The album "Pick up, Lift off, Space, Time" is out 5 April. International distribution by Fuzz Club Records.

Professor Tip Top: Aoum

In January I had a cosy little blog post on Professor Tip Top´s album, "Are you Empirical?" in my Norwegian blog (Google translate will get you through I hope), and now they are here again with another album called "Aoum" (Fossbakk Hansen Prod, 2012).

They call their music psykedelika/prog/jazz (Facebook), and I think I will dare to use the C-word (it´s "Canterbury"!) here too.
A bit nostalgic (in a good way), with traces of Gong and Pink Floyd, and quite a few catchy melodies too.

"Living in the past, is my future right now"
("Living in the past")

Musicians: Svein Magnar Hansen (voc), Sam Fossbakk (g, synth stuff), Mette Soele Zachau Mathiesen (dr), Sonja Otto (voc, hammond), Stein Høgseth (bass) and once again (I´m quite impressed!) Jon Irabagon (Mostly Other People Do The Killing) on sax!

Music: Sam Fossbakk.
Lyrics: Svein Magnar Hansen.
Cover: Øyvind Lothe, Reine Linjer.

If you want to check them out, downloads are available and easy to find (iTunes, eMusic). CDs and LPs exist too, but might be harder to get (try asking at their FB site).

Eight desert island tunes

Oh no, another list!
Yes, I ended up choosing my eight tunes for a stay on a desert island, for the Norwegian blog Musikkprat (head on over there to choose your own songs if you like!).

I´m not going to that island anyway, so i did not choose eight very long and advanced pieces of music to keep my ears occupied for as long as possible! I picked some sad ones, some fun ones and some noisy ones (albums in brackets).

Ivor Cutler: Good Morning! How are you? Shut Up! (Ludo)
- Way to start the day, any place!

Robert Wyatt: Sea Song (Rock Bottom)
- Island or mountain top, this one is coming along.

Robert Wyatt: Free Will And Testament (Shleep)
- "What kind of spider understands arachnophobia?" Animals on that island?

Maja Ratkje: Insomnia (Voice)
- Boring island? Play this one as loud as you can.

Peter Blegvad: Crumb De La Crumb (Downtime)
- "In cemeteries of cement, it says on every monument; consider how your time is spent, ´cause soon your time is done". Time for some thinking.

Arild Nyquist & Terje Wiik: Visa om kjærlighet (Epleslang)
- Sweet and sad love song in Norwegian.

Brøtzmann, Nilssen-Love, Gustafsson: Bullets Through Rain (The Fat Is Gone)
- Live from Moldejazz, and a souvenir. I was there.

1982: 6:02 (Pintura)
- Folk improv for all ecosystems.

Romantic Warrors II

"Romantic Warriors II" is the name of a new DVD where the history of "Rock In Opposition" (RIO) is told.
It all started in 1978 with a progressive music festival initiated by Henry Cow, with these bands: Henry Cow (England), Stormy Six (Italy), Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden), Univers Zero (Belgium) and Etron Fou Leloublan (France).
They played "The music the record companies don't want you to hear". The original bands and others are all in the DVD you (soon) may order over at Progdocs.

And of course they also have a "Romantic Warriors I", with some of the new bands inspired by RIO.

The Mynah Birds

I promised you never to mention Record Store Day 2012 again, but then Tor at Bergen´s Apollon record store went on about The Mynah Birds, and yes I bought another 7". This is just the reason we still need good record shops.
The Mynah Birds recorded the rocker "It´s my time" and the ballad "Go on and cry" for Motown in 1966, but the songs were not released until "The Complete Motown Singles" came in 2006.
Now the vinyl single, with the two mentioned tracks, was released in an edition of 5000 for Record Store Day 2012, and I got number 4879.

I hereby confess that I did not know that Neil Young did record for Motown, and played in aband with Rick James! The other guys in The Mynah Birds were Bruce Palmer, Rickman Mason and John Taylor.
Palmer went to LA with Neil Young, and started Buffalo Springfield, after The Mynah Birds imploded.

Nick Warburton tells The Mynah Birds story over at Neil Young News.

El Doom & The Born Electric

Let me just inform you that Rune Grammofon just released a 7" vinyl with El Doom & The Born Electric.

I´ll admit that I still can´t say I love their prog-album released in January, but the single sounds a bit fresher. None of the tracks, "The teeth that match my wounds" and "The driven man that I am", are on the album.

Download the music if you like, but 500 persons might get hold of one copy each of the vinyl edition, with a great Kim Hiorthøy cover (slightly cut in my picture)!

Smugglers Way

Vinyl might not be so hip any more, because here come the flexi discs! Nice!??
Domino Records released the flexi disc fanzine "Smugglers Way" for Record Store Day (21 April).

Some of us got hold of it (there are probably still a few left), and are now owners of five very soft records in bright colours, and a fanzine, with the story "Wee Stevie Baxter" by James Yorkston, being my favorite. I had a post on Yorkston´s book "It´s lovely to be here" last year.
Among the records, I choose Cass McComb´s cover of Leonard Cohen´s "Teachers".

The records:
Dirty Projectors – "You Against The Larger World"
Real Estate – "In My Car"
Cass McCombs – "Teachers" (Leonard Cohen)
John Maus – "No Title (Molly)"
Villagers – "Shards"

More info, pictures and sounds over here.

Cakewalk

HUBROCD2514 Cakewalk: Wired - Glass by HUBRO

Cakewalk: "A mixture of the expressions "a piece of cake" and "a walk in the park". Used to describe a task that is extremely, ridiculously friggin easy". (Urban Dictionary).

The trio Cakewalk is here with their first album "Wired" (Hubro 2012). The music is improvised and pretty hard to classify, and the record company Hubro compares the music to "Krautrock, industrial electronic music, noise-rock rock and the Bowie/Eno “Berlin Trilogy". I don´t disagree with that, "industrial" was a word that came to my mind too, but it is not "ridiculously friggin easy" (there are other meanings of the word Cakewalk too, probably more fitting?).

Others have compared Cakewalk to the Norwegian band Puma, I throw in Ultralyd too, and you may feel free to add more! Cakewalk do their own stuff anyway, and they build pretty tough soundscapes and tunes. Check them out, and play as loud as you dare. 30 minutes is all you get!

Cakewalk is Øystein Skar (synth, and known from the bands Glow, Sacred Harp and Highasakite), Stephan Meidell (g, b, boxes, and also in Krachmacher, The Sweetest Thrill and Vanilla Riot) and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad (dr, also playing in Hedvig Mollestad Trio and the Hilde Marie Kjersem band).

Cover: Klara Sofie Ludvigsen and Yokoland (sorry I cut it a bit).

Ross Hammond Quartet

These days I seem to listen to few artists/bands in the jazz and improv area, who focus on electric guitars. What´s happening? OK, I play my Scorch Trio and Bushman´s Revenge albums, and of course the Norwegian guitar master Stian Westerhus, but he treats his guitar like it´s from another world.
So I needed another dose, and then comes Ross Hammond Quartet with "Adored" (Prescott Recordings 2012), all the way from California.

I might know the brother of one of the musicians, but once more, here is another bunch of great musicians I have probably never heard before:
Ross Hammond (g), Alex Cline (dr), Vinny Golia (sax) and Steuart Liebig (b).
There are good melodies, pretty rocked out stuff and into the free form wilderness they go too, happily during the same tune (like "Hands Up"), and there are quiet, beautiful moments like on "She´s my little girl". A very fine mix indeed.

On YouTube they play a live version of "Sesquipedalian", for your pleasure, and the album may be downloaded from both eMusic and iTunes.

Mikhael Paskalev - "I spy"

Mikhael Paskalev - I spy from André Chocron on Vimeo.

Ah! Sweet pop music!
Check out my friend André Chocron´s new video for Norwegian Mikhael Paskalev´s song "I spy".

Ogdens´ Nut Gone Flake

Today I went down into the basement again, to look for a classic record.
Small Faces: "Ogdens´ Nut Gone Flake" (Immediate 1968) must have been one of the first LPs I bought, and I´m sorry I have to confess to you that my name is written in pretty large letters on the backside of one of the pages, that I tore from each other to pin to my wall! Those were the days!

Some days ago I got a newsletter (and I can´t find it now!?) stating that there soon would be a limited edition vinyl release of this album, with the original round cover, as made by Mick Swan. I suppose it is happening in connection with the DeLuxe edition release in May.

This is great psychedelia, one part being in the form of a fairytale (told by Stanley Unwin) and original tunes like "Lazy Sunday". You don´t buy this one ONLY for the cover!

Small Faces: Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenny Jones and Ian McLagan.

Even More Rock Family Trees

Music journalist Peter Frame has been drawing and telling the history of rock, using"family trees" since the late 70s.
I don´t know how many hours I have been smiling, reading the first two volumes, published in 1979 and 1983 (unfortunately I have missed a couple of books too), and now he´s at it again with "Even More Rock Family Trees" (Omnibus 2011).

I don´t care if this is perfect history telling or not, or if some details are missing or wrong, because this is great fun. It´s almost as you may watch the history of rock from a bird´s view, with lots of good stories, an all of them hand written!

In this volume Frame also includes some trees made by Paul Barber, the only other tree worker he admires. Barber made the "Miles Davis Live Bands 1955-75" tree. This is not a jazz book of course, but I was a bit surprised to find Elton Dean and Mark Charig in "Elton John´s Extended Family Tree", in the band Bluesology with Long John Baldry.
Other artists/topics/fields regularly mentioned in this blog, may be found in Martin Carthy´s and Fairport Convention´s trees.

The other rock family tree volumes are :
Rock Family Trees (1979)
Rock Family Trees Volume 2 (1983)
The Beatles & Some Other Guys (1997)
More Rock Family Trees (1998)

The Megaphonic Thrift

I just have to post Beehive´s video for the Bergen based band The Megaphonic Thrift´s "Moonstruck", taken from their new eponymous album (Neues Records/Tuba, 2012). International release on Club AC30.
This is almost "See Bergen, Donnie Darko style"!

The band is Richard Myklebust, Linn Frøkedal, Njål Clementsen and Fredrik Vogsborg.

Andrew in Drag

New single from Magnetic Fields: "Andrew in Drag".
New album named "Love at the Bottom of the Sea" to be released 6 March.
Video: Scott Valins.
Found it over at Pitchfork.

Machina

How about a hot mix of swinging New Orleans brass (or is it New York?), free jazz and rock spiced with Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart? Would have suited you just fine? I thought so!
Then go check out Machina´s album "So much for Dancing" (Øra 2011). Tough enough!

These musicians will make you smile (some of them known from Albatrosh and Pelbo):
Kim-Erik Pedersen: Alto sax/baryton sax
André Roligheten: Baryton sax
Viktor Wilhelmsen: Guitar
Kristoffer Lo: Tuba
Trond Bersu: Drums

I got my sounds from eMusic, and it´s pretty cheap on iTunes (in Norway at least, 63 kr).

A late club evening with these guys, just have to be good!

New album from Pelbo

Pelbo - Join Their Game from Riot Factory on Vimeo.

The trio Pelbo (Ine Hoem (voc), Kristoffer Lo (tuba) and Trond Bersuer(dr)) release their new album "Days of transcendence" (Riot Factory 2011) today. Let´s celebrate with the video to the tune "Join their game", showing how it really could be to travel by public transport.The video was recorded in Trondheim, and they might behave like this all the time of course?!

The director is André Chocron, who got rave reviews for his video for Cold Mailman´s "Time is of the essence". And, OK, it´s Friday, so let´s have two videos then!

Cold mailman - Time is of the essence from André Chocron on Vimeo.

Moe: It pictures

Moe is Guro Skumsnes Moe (bass, voc), Håvard Skaset (g) and Sveinar Hoff (dr). This is a powertrio, more focused on power than melodies, and they smell of both punk and metal.
I heard them at the Nattjazz festival in Bergen this June, but they did not get to me that evening. The music was too loud and monotonous for my old pair of ears. The album "It Pictures" (Conrad Sound 2011) is still not one that make you hum along to it, but the music is far more open and alive than what I heard at Nattjazz.
On the album Okkyung Lee (cello) (played in Bergen too), Lasse Marhaug ("acoustic noise") and Kjetil Møster (sax) are guesting. On "Island" Møster is honking along, making me think of Morphine (the band of course).

Guro Skumsnes Moe has visited Wyatt and Stuff several times. See posts on Art Directors (Håvard Skaset plays there too) and Sekstett.

The CD was released in May, and now they also sell (don´t ask me where) 300 copies of a black vinyl LP version and 200 copies of a blue one. Also files on eMusic and iTunes. Buy if you dare.
Listen to some tracks over at SoundCloud.