The Musician's Union

Robert Wyatt on how to swim through shark infested waters, with the help of The Musician's Union.
(I stole this one over at Hibou Anemone and Bear).

MU testimonial by Richard Thompson too, look here.

New album from NP Molvær

The new Nils Petter Molvær album "Baboon Moon" is scheduled for release November 1st. On Thirsty Ear I guess, since they posted an official video for "Mercury Heart" on YouTube.
Other musicians are Stian Westerhus (g) and Erland Dahlen (dr).

Brian Eno to PUNKT 2012

I have hardly returned from Kristiansand, and PUNKT 2011, and the local newspaper Fædrelandsvennen write that Brian Eno is going to be the head curator of PUNKT 2012.
I might go next year too!

PUNKT 2011 - Day three

I had really hoped to see Evan Parker perform live with Ingar Zach and Stian Westerhus at the Sørlandet Art Center Saturday afternoon, but we got three 20 min long solos, Parker first, then Zach and finally Westerhus. When Stian Westerhus entered, the dominance of the quiet improv was over for good at this year´s festival. He went rock and noise from the word go, but quieted down with some bow playing on the guitartowards the end, and I observed that even Evan Parker pulled his fingers out of his ears. Three fine solos, but a pretty wild mix!

On the main stage at Agder Theater Arve Henriksen´s album "Cartography" was performed, with Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Ingar Zach, Eivind Aarset, Anna Maria Friman, David Sylvian and Arve Henriksen. This is still an absolute beautiful piece of music, but it was perhaps a little bit more dark now, adding some more excitement to the music.

The great Susanne Sundfør owned the stage, with a strong performance of her own songs, almost disappearing in smoke. I was afraid we would have a Spinal Tap moment there, when she had to cough, but she was OK!

The professors Helge Sten and John Paul Jones led the first of Saturday´s seminars at the Agder University, demonstrating the KYMA system. This is a bit too much technology for me (some graphic interface stuff for musicians), but with good teachers,and some playing to demonstrate, we had a nice hour at school.
Later in the evening they played the final concert of the festival, starting off with what looked like an iPad performance, but ended up in a massive electronica show. Cool!

Oh yes, there were live remixes too. My favorites of the evening happened to be Nils Petter Molvær and Guy Sigsworth making a hysteric disco mix out of Susanne Sundfør and Sacred Harp´s concerts, and Molvær at it again, with Jan Bang, Marilyn Mazur, Eivind Aarset and Erik Honoré, remixing Minibus Pimps.

Images from PUNKT 2011 - Second day

It was a long Friday at PUNKT, with seminars, concerts and live remixes.

The first seminar of the day was with Fiona Talkington talking to "turntable artist" Philip Jeck. A fascinating and talkative artist! He was not particularly interested in claiming that one genre was better than the other. "There are bad people in all genres". He also advised the students at the university to take any opportunity offered. "Don´t be cynical about anything! That´s my motto!".

A pretty nervous Evan Parker entered the stage, admitting that he did not feel comfortable speaking in these academic settings. What he did do, was to use his nervousness to illustrate some of the nature of improvisation, when he lost track of his own manuscript. His talk was on composition and/or improvisation, and the correct title in the program should have been "Semantic confusions and their consequences in the discourse on improvisation", not "confusion". Glad to help you all there.
And thanks to Evan Parker I may even manage to sneak in a Wyatt - Benge link, since he told us that Alfreda Benge introduced him to John Stevens, while she was working at Ronnie Scott´s when she was studying.

On the main stage at the Agder Teater we were in for a slow and meditative evening, with quiet improv (Koboku Senju, JohnTilbury/Evan Parker/John Russell/Okkyung Lee), music composed by Dai Fujikura and a live performance of David Sylvian and Holger Czukay´s "Plight and Premonition", with Sylvian, Erik Honoré, Jan Bang, John Tilbury, Philip Jeck, Arve Henriksen and Eivind Aarset on stage. Beautiful music all the way, with fantastic sound and lights as added value (photo of Tilbury/Parker/Russell/Lee). I must admit I would have enjoyed some kick of energy in there for a change, but as Han Bennink says when he goes off rock drumming at jazz festivals: "Sorry, wrong festival!"

Jan Bang, Erik Honoré and Sidsel Endresen remixed Dai Fujikura´s music from the first concert of the evening. Very nice, and not too long either. Quite a lot of artists here do not seem to agree that it is smart to leave the audience wanting more.

Since we were told that some of the audience were quite distracted by amateur photographers at the festival, let me just put it straight, that my photos were taken in a very discrete manner, from the side of the hall or well hidden among the professionals. And hey, no shutter sounds from me!
No members of the audience were hurt to make this blog post.

PUNKT Festival Day 1

The Punkt Festival in Kristiansand (Norway) started with a concert Wednesday (Jarle Bernhoft, Norwegian singer), but the grand opening happened yesterday at the Sørlandet Art Museum, with concerts in David Sylvian and Atsushi Fukui´s installation area.
The place was packed, you could not hear the speakers and they were running late, but after the concerts started all such minor details were (almost) forgotten.

When we entered Arve Henriksen (tp), Evan Parker (sax), Paal Helge Haugen (poetry) and Nils Christian Moe-Repstad (poetry) were on stage. It started off with readings from Haugen, and solos from Henriksen and Parker, but towards the end of the concert, both musicians played, underlining the words from the poets, blending nicely with with Sylvian´s sound installation. Beautiful!

Paal Helge Haugen and Nils Christian Moe-Repstad wrote new material for this performance, and it is published by PUNKT in "Uncommon Deities" (2011) (both Norwegian and English versions).

The second concert was by John Tilbury (p), Sidsel Endresen (voc) and Philip Jeck (electronics, turntables) with David Sylvian´s voice reading some of the pieces the poets read earlier in the evening. Absolutely great too, with Jeck painting a fantastic soundscape to end the show.

Terje Rypdal live

Here is another live video from the great Henie Onstad Art Center (Oslo).
Terje Rypdal played an outdoor concert with Magnus Rypdal and Palle Mikkelborg 28 August 2011.