Yun Kan 10 at Nattjazz

What a bunch of great Swedes! And what a concert! The stage at Bergen´s Nattjazz festival was packed when Fredrik Ljungkvist´s Yun Kan 10 played Thursday evening.
Ljungkvist guided the band through his compositions, seeming both strict and smiling, but the concert was also spiced with free form music, and then suddenly they were swinging like hell!!

Now check out this gang, and tell me you wouldn´t have loved to be there: Fredrik Ljungkvist (saxophones,clarinet), Sofia Jernberg (voc), Mats Äleklint (trombone), Per-Åke Holmlander (tuba), Klas Nevrin (p), Mattias Risberg (moog, synth), Katt Hernandez (violin), Mattias Weli (bass), Jon Fält (drums) and Raymond Strid (drums).

Yun Kan 10´s album "Ten" is out on Hoob Records (2013). Read a review over at All About Jazz.

B/B/S/

Wednesday evening I enjoyed a concert by B/B/S/ in the Bergen International Festival´s series "Between the Sound" (go a few posts back for Deathprod in the same series).

B/B/S/ a Berlin based trio with Aidan Baker (g), Andrea Belfi (dr, perc, electronics) and Erik K. Skodvin (g), and according to local Bergen newspaper Bergens Tidende (28 May), Skodvin claims that they mostly do drones, psychedelia, shoegaze, noise, ambient, doom-metal, free jazz and electronic music, and I guess that is describing the concert too!
Superfine, dark music in the summer heat.

Regular readers of the blog will of course recognize Skodvin as Svarte Greiner, a project leaning more towards dark ambient, than B/B/S/.
Please check out the B/B/S/ album "Brick Mask" (Miasmah 2013).

Friends

I met these three guys on my way from work today. Really cute street art by RC.

Ivor Cutler: Get Away From The Wall

You may find Ivor Cutler´s "Get away from the wall" on "An Elpee and Two Epees" (2005).

Here you have a new, short version by a men´s choir (watch YouTube), and (once again) the original, illustrated in the most charming way!

Deathprod: Treetop Drive

The Bergen International Festival is happening these days, and they have a concert series called "Between Sound" in cooperation with the Borealis and Ekko festivals of Bergen.

Monday evening we got to hear a live version of Helge "Deathprod" Sten´s classic noise album "Treetop Drive" from 1994, with Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan (Motorpsycho) playing the violin (he also did that on the album)! Minimalistic, noisy and in fact quite beautiful, in a room full of smoke and lights by Pekka Stokke.

I hereby confess that I have never heard the album "Treetop Drive", so for me it was a new experience.

"Treetop Drive" is available from Rune Grammofon ( CD released in 2011).

Nattjazz Bergen - Sunday 26 May

Oh my, what a varied program at Nattjazz on Sunday!
I was a bit in a hurry, and a bit tired this fifth day out on the festival, so I managed only two whole concerts.

- The first one out was Arve Henriksen whith the three drummers Ingar Zach, Audun Kleive and Helge Nordbakken, and live remixer Jan Bang! Powerful and tough, but with solid doses of the trumpet playing and singing we expect from Arve Henriksen. Add visuals from Tord Knutsen and you will guess that the show was close to perfect.

- In the small USF Studio upstairs, Helge Sten and John Paul Jones of Minibus Pimps delivered a concert that might end up being mythical (if we brag abut having been there). Heavy electronics, dark ambient and rumbling noise, that almost brought the house down. It was fantastic, and I am not kidding you!
I believe they still work with the KYMA software, that they presented at PUNKT in 2011?

Later that same night John Paul Jones played mandolin with Bonnie Prince Billy and Dawn McCarthy, and not to forget Susanna Wallumrød, but at that time of night, I was on my bus.

Nattjazz (Bergen) Saturday 25 May. A short summary.

Saturday evening was all Norwegian at Nattjazz.

- Beginning with the end, as I was on my way to leave the venue, I met Dr. Kay and The Interstellar Tone Scientists coming back in after an outdoor walk with the audience.

- I started the evening with Mathias Eick and his commissioned work for the Vossajazz festival: "Voss". Much more powerful and intense than what I (for some reason) expected. Really good, to tell you the truth.
The band: Mathias Eick, Torstein Lofthus, Gard Nilsen, Nikolai Hængsle Eilertsen, Even Helte Hermansen, Andreas Ulvo, Erlend Slettevoll and Anders Aasebø (sound), and only one of the guys on stage without a beard! What´s happening?

- The jolly drummers Øyvind Skarbø and Øyvind Hegg-Lunde of Crab is Crap was joined by Ståle Storløkken for a fun and partly funky happening. The guys had been visiting a studio earlier in the day, so we might expect a recording soon?

- And finally Møster!, now without the already mentioned Ståle Storløkken, who played on Møster!´s fine album "Edvard Lygre Møster" (Hubro 2013). The band these days: Kjetil Møster, Kenneth Kapstad, Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan and Nikolai Hængsle Eilertsen. The sound wasn´t too good in the beginning of the concert (damn, I couldn´t hear the saxophone!) but improved very much, and it turned into a tight, noisy, rocking and rolling show. With half of Motorpsycho present, no wonder!