Hard work and fate

Egil Olsen, Jenny Hval (aka Rockettothesky), Erlend Slettevoll and Stig Ulv perform "Hard work and fate" from Olsen´s "Nothing like the love i have for you", live at Victoria, Oslo (8 December 2009). Beautiful, or what?
And it´s not the football coach Egil Olsen, just to make that clear.

River

I had decided not to buy any Christmas music this year, but don´t regret that i downloaded Eldbjørg Raknes´ fine and mellow Christmas version of Joni Mitchell´s "River". You may find it here.
If you read Norwegian, see some other singles I bought too here, and if I buy some more, it will be Carla Bley´s and Mathias Eick´s albums.

Rune Grammofon 2010

Forthcoming Rune Grammofon releases for 2010 include Motorpsycho with "Heavy Metal Fruit" in January, Elephant9 with "Walk The Nile" in February, the debut album from Espen Eriksen Trio in March, and later on Bushman´s Revenge, Puma and Stian Westerhus
And they still have a sale on some of their albums, but you better hurry up.

A bit out of focus

If you have visited this blog some times, you must have noticed that it is not very focused. I mix all kinds of music (and other stuff), and will not excuse myself, but rather make a hell of a mix today!
Let´s start in the most charming way, with Regina Spektor and Norwegian singer Sondre Lerche at Rockefeller (Oslo), recorded a couple of days ago (singing "Hell no").
Then we go a bit more brutal with Shining live in Tokyo (shown at a YouTube festival today, to mark "Give Your Live - a music festival for human rights").
Next ones out are Lean Left, one of Ken Vandermark´s projects (live recording, November 2009). Lean Left is Ken Vandermark, Terrie Ex, Andy Moor and Paal Nilssen-Love.
And OK, we will join the celebration of The Clash : It´s 30 years since "London Calling"! I can´t believe it. I bought the album when it came out, but I´ll have to admit that my favorite track was "Brand New Cadillac"!

Fairytale of New York

We just have to have the best Christmas song of them all in the blog in December, "Fairytale of New York", this time live with Martha Wainwright and Ed Harcourt (Royal Albert Hall 9 December, 2009). The original with Shane McGowan and Kirsty McColl is perfect, but this version is good too, although not really as sad as I like it.

Jaga Jazzist

Jaga Jazzist will release a new album next year, and the single "One-Armed Bandit" is very promising! On their site they say: "Having taken on two new members, Øystein Moen and Stian Westerhus, the band rented a house in the Swedish forest to rehearse “this new Zappa-esque, more humorous prog-rock music.”" Looking forward to this one!
The video is from the 2009 Japan tour, with the new single as soundtrack.

Slapp Happy

Slapp Happy is Peter Blegvad, Anthony Moore and Dagmar Krause, and as you all know, they made some great albums with slightly melancholic pop in the 70s ("Sort of", "Casablanca moon" and "Desperate Straights").
The reunion album "Ça Va" came in 1998 and is almost as good as the first ones (listen to "Scarred for life"!). This album has been hard to find (they claim), but it is now reissued by Voiceprint. Just buy it!
Voiceprint also reissued "Live in Japan - May 2000", originally from 2001, and i must admit I didn´t know about it until now (so much for claiming to be a Slapp Happy fan). On this live recording they do songs from all mentioned albums, and even if the live feeling is a bit dull, the songs come through, and you have to get this one too, after getting the other ones (also available on iTunes and eMusic).
What a great trio this is!