The Unthanks: "Lullaby for Hamza"

I seem to have missed this version of Robert Wyatt and Alfreda Benge's "Lullaby for Hamza" by The Unthanks (found it over at Hibou, Anemone & Bear today). It was performed for The Lullaby Project at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds (more videos here). The original song is on "Cuckooland" (Domino 2003).

Kjetil Møster's one day tour

This year's Bergen International Festival is soon over, but Sunday's most busy musician must have been Bergen's own saxophone player Kjetil Møster (The Core, Ultralyd etc). I attended half of his Sunday tour, seeing two out of four concerts! Three concerts were parts of a series called "The sound of open houses" (my translation).

I was present at his concert at the Bergen Fire Station, where he played for fire men and regular audience. Møster described this music as industrial in a local newspaper, while the first concert of the day, which was held in a beautiful house with garden just outside town, made him play some eastern/asiatic elements.
Well of course, buildings and surroundings may influence the musician, and when he played from the balcony of an appartment in the afternoon sun, he chose more standard jazz for his 15 minutes long solo. The appartment owner's american flags and picture of Obama in the window may have played it's part too!

Someone posted a couple of not too good videos again. From the balcony here, and the fire station here.

MoonJune Celebrates Tenth Anniversary

Leonardo Pavkovic's record company MoonJune is celebrating it's tenth anniversary this month. If you are a prog fan, you should take a look. Cheap albums, and no postage in June! Some post Wyatt Soft Machine to be found too.

SPUNK at exhibitions

SPUNK recently played at Rom 8 in Bergen. This performance was filmed (in better quality than my videos!) and the videos from this performance are now exhibited at the gallery Knipsu. At the opening of the SPUNK exhibition, they played live via Skype, and it worked quite well too!
Musicians: Kristin Andersen (flute, trumpet), Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (vocals) and Lene Grenager (cello). (Hild Sofie Tafjord is still part of SPUNK (!), but she has been travelling.)
SPUNK also played a concert for invited guests at Hanne Borchgrevink's art exhibition for the Bergen International Festival. Video uploaded by Maja Ratkje.

The Old Grey Whistle Test

The first part of  "The Old Grey Whistle Test" 40th Anniversary Album (WMTV 2011) is released 6 June. This is a best of collection (?) of the music that was presented on this UK TV-show.
Robert Wyatt's "Shipbuilding" is on the collection.

This seems to be a collection of album versions, and not the versions played on the show (they never mimed, did they?), but you may still get DVDs.
Here is a YouTube  video with presenter Bob Harris.

Enslaved, Crimson, Zeppelin

Bergen's own metal heroes Enslaved played rock classics at an outdoor concert at the Henie Onstad Cultural Centre in Oslo in May. Here you get  King Crimson's "Red" and  "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin.
Oh yes! We need some rock now!

Stian Westerhus & Sidsel Endresen at Elbjazz

Last week Stian Westerhus and Sidsel Indresen played a great concert at Nattjazz in Bergen. Since then they have played at Elbjazz. Watch the video!