New albums on SOFA

Why don´t you have a listen to two new relases on the Sofa label?

Microtuba is Robin Hayward (microtonal F-tuba), Martin Taxt (microtonal C-tuba) and Kristoffer Lo (microtonal C-tuba). Their album "Star System" was recorded at Sjøbygda Art House in Selbu, Norway in April 2013. Microtonal and minimalistic, but please try to dance to the track "Squaredance" if you please.

Citing Sofa: "The 3-dimensional graphic scores used on the album Star System are subsets of the Hayward Tuning Vine, which arose out of a desire to visualise the harmonic space implicit within the microtonal tuba. Each of the balls represent pitches, and the struts between them musical intervals".


Michael Francis Duch´s "Tomba Emanuelle" was recorded in May 2013 at the Emmanuel Vigeland Mausoleum in Oslo, famous for it´s acoustics.

Citing M.F. Duch: "It is an unedited concert recording of a piece I have been working on since it was first commissioned by nyMusikk Bergen in 2012. It is for one or more bass instruments exploring different registers, timbres and acoustic effects of their instruments and their relation to the room it is being performed in".

Wyatt and Stuff Spring Festival 2013

It´s festival season, and here is our spring festival of 2013:

- First out two videos with Evan Parker, John Edwards and John Russell from (the already mentioned) MOPOMOSO tour. More info, and lots of videos on MOPOMOSO´s YouTube.
- John Surman Trio 1975 (full concert). John Surman (bcl,ss,bs), Dieter Feichtner (synthesizer) and Barre Phillips (b).
- Phil Minton and Mick Beck (Sheffield), January 2013.
- Hanne Hukkelberg "My Devils" at Mono (Oslo). Hanne Hukkelberg, Mai Elise Solberg and Ivar Grydeland.
- Hanne Hukkelberg "No Mascara" at Mono (Oslo). Hanne Hukkelberg, Mai Elise Solberg and Ivar Grydeland.
- Michael Francis Duch "Hugh Shrapnel Medley" at Avant Garden (Trondheim), April 2013.

November festival

Lemur at Gråmølna from Lemur on Vimeo.

To kick off November, we are having a little festival today. The artists (top to bottom):

Michiyo Yagi Double Trio : Michiyo Yagi (21-string koto, vocal), Todd Nicholson (bass), Takashi Sugawa (bass), Tamaya Honda (drums), Noritaka Tanaka (drums) Live at Shinjuku Pit Inn, Tokyo (Japan), 2 September 2011.

Decoy: Steve Noble (drums), Alex Hawkins (piano), John Edwards (bass) + Joe McPhee (sax, trumpet). Cafe Oto (London) 29 October 2011.

Liarbird: Ola Kvernberg (violin), Bergmund Skaslien (viola), Håkon Kornstad (sax), Eirik Hegdal (sax), Ingebrikt Håker Flaten (bass) ,Ole Morten Vågan (bass), Torstein Lofthus (drums), Eirik Nylander (drums), Mathias Eick (trumpet). Bergen Jazzforum (Norway) 28 October 2011.

Lemur: Bjørnar Habbestad (flute), Michael Francis Duch (bass), Hild Sofie Tafjord (French horn) and Lene Grenager (cello). Gråmølna Art Gallery, Trondheim (Norway) (2011).

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.

Images from Moldejazz 2011

Moldejazz 2011 is over.

- Festival artist Gjertrud Hals in the gallery Kunstnersentret Møre og Romsdal.
- Michael Duch and Kjetil Møster did some fantastic solo concerts at the venue Reknes.
- Supersilent is Supersilent, even with John Paul Jones in the band.
- Michael Duch spoke about his thesis on free improvisation at the Festival Academy.
- Magnus Broo, Paal Nilssen-Love and Tyshawn Sorey played some hot improvised music at Forum. One trumpet and two drummers, one of them Sorey, who did some cleaning and drinking as part of his playing too.
- Tyshawn Sorey was at it again with John Escreet Trio for an afternoon concert Friday, with Escreet (p) and Eivind Opsvik (b). What a powerful trio! And Sorey was at it again, I was almost impaled by a drum stick. The first row might not be the best place with him on stage.
- Dave Holland talked at the Festival Academy, and did five concerts as Artist in Residence. I attended a fine solo concert and the final concert of the festival in the Molde Church with Thimar. Dave Holland (b), John Surman (soprano, bass clarinet) and Anouar Brahem (oud) dedicated their music to the victims of the terrible killings in Oslo and on the Utøya island the previous day.

3 new ones from +3dB

Just a reminder here, about the three newest releases from the Bergen record company +3dB, if you need something else than easy listening for Christmas. Not that this is too heavy, but the music will at least sound pretty fresh next year too. I have just started to dip into these three albums, but they sound fascinating, interesting and nice (make them sound boring, do I?).

You may even listen to them on Spotify if you have access. I must admit it´s pretty fun to get Mariah Carey on the ear, telling me about her Christmas album, while listening to some chamber-contemorary -impro! (Yes I still run the free version of Spotify, with advertising).

- Tilbury/Duch/Davies: "Cornelius Cardew Works 1960-1970". John Tilbury (p), Michael Francis Duch (b) and Rhodri Davis (harp).
- Lemur: "Aigéan". This is the second Lemur album on +3dB, and while Cardew´s composed music sound improvised (OK, some of it really is improvised), Lemur´s imrov sound composed.  The fine lemurs are: Bjørnar Habbestad (fl), Lene Grenager (cello), Hild Sofie Tafjord (horn) and Michael Francis Duch (b).
- Michael Francis Duch: "Edges". Duch´s first solo album.

Elevator music

Sax man Eirik Hegdal is all over the place these days, participating in several bands and projects, and playing on lots of records.
Not too long ago I mentioned En En En, and let me suggest you listen to Team Hegdal "Vol. 1" too, with André Roligheten (sax/bass clarinet), Rune Nergaard (double bass) and Gard Nilssen (drums) and Zanussi Five´s "Ghost Dance", where Hegdal is in a band with Rolf Erik Nystrøm (alto sax), Jørgen Mathisen (tenor sax), Per Zanussi (double bass) and Gard Nilssen (drums). All three albums were released in 2010.

But today´s blog post is about "Elevator" (Øra 2010) with the Alpaca Ensemble. The music was recorded live at the Trondheim Chamber Music Festival in 2008, so I guess it is chamber music then! It reminds me of some kind of soundtrack, and that is quite fitting, because an important part of this work is a dream like story, written and read by improvising poet Matt Burt.
Poetry reading on albums is not my first choice, but it works just fine here. The story is about a strange trip in an elevator, quite fun really, and Burt is a very good reader (Chicago style), so I think this will stand repeated listening.
Buy the CD version, and you will get the printed story too.

These people play on the album: Matt Burt (words), Sigrid Elisabeth Stang (violin), Marianne Baudouin Lie (cello, voc), Else Bø (piano, celesta), Eirik Hegdal (sax), Ole Jørgen Melhus (flutes), Jovan Pavlovic (accordion), Michael Francis Duch (bass), Lars Sitter (percussio) and Tor Haugerud (drums, percusion).

And I really like the cover too, designed by Birgit Rostad.

En En En

In September 2009 I accidentally fell into the Robot shop in Bergen, where the trio En En En played.
I just want to remind you now that Michael Francis Duch (bass), Tor Haugerud (drums) and Eirik Hegdal (sax/clar) is here with an album called "Rød og blå" (Øra 2010) (meaning "Red and Blue"). You may download from eMusic.
I see I had trouble classifying their music after the concert, and still have after the album, but it´s jazz and it´s improv of the not so noisy sort. Cosy improv? Buy it and see, it´s nice!

The album has 13 tracks with titles like B8, B9, R11, and I might be slow, but I would not have minded if some of them were a bit longer (five tracks last less than two minutes).

Musculus Trapezius

This is not a record I like every day, but today it was just fine! The record is number 13 on Lasse Marhaug´s Pica Disk, and "Musculus Trapezius" was recorded at the Sofienberg church in Oslo two years ago.
The musicians Tony Conrad (harpsichord, violin), C. Spencer Yeh (piano, violin) and Michael F. Duch (double bass) play 70 minutes of what sounded like elegant minimalism (spiced with some droning and noise) today. Last week it felt like too much, and that may be the case tomorrow too, but hey, you won´t get fed up by this album. Buy it from Looop (and remember three times "o" on your PayPal payment, if you don´t want a recycling firm in Oslo to get the money).

On Pica Disk´s site they go all scientific (or ironic) and cite: "EMG Trapezius Muscle Activity Pattern in String Players:: Part I—Is There Variability in the Playing Technique?" authored by Anncristine Fjellman-Wiklund, Helena Grip, Jan Stefan Karlsson, and Gunnevi Sundelin, published in International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics (Volume 33, Issue 4, April 2004), where they write: "Work-related neck and shoulder disorders are a great problem for string musicians; a playing technique with more relaxed muscles and a greater variation in the muscle activity pattern, i.e., with shorter sequences at a varied number of amplitude levels... might prevent pain."
M.F. Duch is in Lemur, I heard C.S. Yeh in Bergen and at All Ears in Oslo in January, you may read about Tony Conrad in Wikipedia where you also may improve your knowledge about Musculus Trapezius.
The album was mastered by Jim O´Rourke.

Lemur and stuff like that

Wednesday Lemur did a Borealis concert and lecture at the Grieg Academy in Bergen. What a great concert they gave, and afterwards each musician talked about their work and their way of improvising and doing group compositions. I bet the music students and composers attending were even happier than me, but still. Hild Sofie Tafjord, Bjørnar Habbestad, Michael Francis Duch and Lene Grenager are Lemur.

Later in the evening Bjørnar Habbestad (flute) played with Pascal Baltazar (computers and all things electric ). Baltazar was unknown to me, but the concert was fantastic. First out was Baltazar doing a solo piece, and then Habbestad did the same, and he was probably sampled by Baltazar who continued. The made a terrific soundscape.

Midday Thursday Lene Grenager (cello)did a short concert with Håkon Stene (drums) at the Student's Center. Some fresh contemporary music to go with the lunch never hurt anyone (before this very day, at least).