Penpals forever (and ever)

Let the autumn begin, here is some more dark and droning ambient from Erik
Skodvin´s Svarte Greiner, on the album "Penpals forever (and ever)" (Digitalis Indistries 2010). The first two tracks are remastered versions of music from the cassette "Penpals Forever" from 2008 (180 copies), the other three tracks are new ones.
To cite the record company, the music describes "the imaginary tale of a long dead Baroque painter and his telekinetic correspondence with a flightless bird". Scary and brilliant!
Svarte Greiner will come flying to the Bergen Ekko festivalen in October.

The new album was released on vinyl (450 copies), but is also available on CD from among others Boomkat and Digitalis (where you may listen to the album too). I got my vinyl copy from Oslo´s Tiger, and it seems like they still have some for sale.

Brecon Jazz Festival

I have already mentioned this happening in a blog post, and this reminder is a bit late I guess, but tonight Orchestre National De Jazz do "Around Robert Wyatt" at Brecon Jazz Festival". From the program it seems like new vocalists are invited to sing here. May professionals or amateurs record this!

And don´t forget the album.

3 Nights in Oslo

Since I try to be an honest man, I will not even pretend to have listened several times to all the music in this box! That may take some time, because the box Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet +1 "3 Nights in Oslo" (SMJZ 2010) contains five CDs, recorded during three nights at Victoria, Nasjonal Jazzscene in Oslo (February 2009). And in October they are back for three more nights at the same venue!

These musicians play : Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson, Jeb Bishop, Joe McPhee, Johannes Bauer, Per Åke Holmlander, Fred Loneberg-Holm, Kent Kessler, Michael Zerang and Paal Nilssen-Love, and if you click on the picture, you might be able to read what´s on the five different CDs.

So far it sounds just great!

You may buy it from Robot (and others I guess), for a ridiculous small amount of money!

Nick Hornby: Juliet, Naked

Summer isn´t over yet (I hope), and if you need a paperback to put in your traveling bag, why not choose Nick Hornby´s "Juliet, Naked" (2009, this cover: Penguin pb 2010).
Annie has been going steady with music crazy Duncan for 15 years, and let´s face it, she´s getting a bit tired. Duncan is a huge fan of the american singer Tucker Crowe, who released "Juliet" in 1986, an album often listed among critics favorites. The couple even travel from their coastal English town to visit important places in Crowe´s life and career, among them a toilet where certain things might have happened, that lead to an ending of Crowe´s professional career! Hey, fans do stuff like that!

Duncan runs a web site and a discussion forum dedicated to Tucker Crowe, and after Annie posts a negative review of a new and stripped version of Juliet (that is "Juliet, Naked") Crowe starts mailing Annie, and no, surprise, it does not stop there! I´m not going to say any more about that!
If you liked "High Fidelity", this might be the story happening quite a few years later.

Nick Hornby writes very well about music, fans, love and men who are boys, but a grown up man spending lots of time on a fan web site? Come on! *Cough*

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

Woha! Now how about this version of Bob Dylan´s "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", from the Norwegian Stangvik Festival 2010?
The music is arranged by POING and Maja Ratkje, and performed by Ratkje (vocal), Rolf-Erik Nystrøm (saxophone), Frode Haltli (accordion) and Håkon Thelin (bass).

You might want to see this smoking Dylan video, and read up on the song and Hattie Carroll on Wikipedia too.

…AND POPPIES FROM KANDAHAR

I´m a bit late with Jan Bang´s "...And Poppies From Kandahar" (Samadhisound, May 2010), but I promise you, it has been on heavy rotation on my Ipod this summer.
It is a fantastic album, and deserves a place on the shelf among albums by the musicians on the album, like Nils Petter Molvær, Arve Henriksen, Sidsel Endresen and Jon Hassell! These are all artists he has worked with earlier too.

I just steal this from Samadhisound´s site on how Bang is composing : “As I often do, I started working on instrumentals which I then presented to the musician that I thought might benefit the track – not unlike the process of making the Cartography album with Arve. … I knew I wanted to write music that had references to my influences, but where I could use my own dialect. I wanted to work with both composition and improvisation on an equal level – using contrasting forms, different dimensions, randomness, parallel directions which weren’t necessarily meant to express anything specific other than to work within the frame of the piece itself.”

David Sylvian wrote the titles for the music, and they make a story for the soundtrack:

1. The Drug Mule
2. Self Injury
3. The Midwife’s Dilemma
4. Passport Control
5. Who Grooms The Child?
6. Heidegger’s Silence
7. Abdication And Coronation
8. Suicide Bomber
9. Taking Life
10. Ululations
11. Exile From Paradise

Kreken

Check out the new video for Phonophani´s "Kreken"!
Filming: Marte Aas. Editing: Espen Sommer Eide.

Here is the blog post on the album by Phonophani.