After worming up day first, full of surprises and good vibes the show goes on. Once I am back into routine everything just clicked in and I am feeling great in old good Berlin like in my own home again. Here we got a following report for most of the events fulfilling the Friday night.

Here we are again. That report covers the first day I joined the Fest this year. Meanwhile a couple of gigs happened in the middle of the week days, hence for travellers like myself, impossible to attempt. What is worth mentioning however here is that the both happened in completely new venues for the festival. One is a Lido, known to me as a great place for the rock event and the one which took place there just fit the purpose right. Another is Kirsche am Hohenzollernplatz, so another fantastic venue for acoustic projects. I didn’t see the set there as well, but went to the church to see the place and it really is the fantastic one. That said instead of the preface. Hope you like the report and it makes you interested to find out more about the Fest and the artists involved.

release: 1.12.17

(NB – Nils Økland UK live performance December 13th)

With ‘Lysning’ – in English a clearing or forest glade – the violin and Hardanger fiddle virtuoso and composer Nils Økland has created a landmark recording that counts as his masterpiece thus far. It is also the synthesis and culmination of a long career working between different forms – folk music, art music from the baroque to free improvisation, jazz, rock, whatever – where Økland, who is now 56, has continued to pursue the same questing approach irrespective of the restrictive rules and boundaries used to separate different historical or generic styles. Listening to ‘Lysning’, everything suddenly becomes clear: Nils Økland plays Nils Økland music. Like a very select few contemporary masters – one thinks perhaps of Jordi Savall, Björk, Jan Garbarek – he has become his own genre.

Hello all!

It’s been a busy busy busy fall season so far, with little sign of any break in the action….but I guess that’s the way it should be as you approach the halfway point of your 50th birthday!

UK/Ireland Tour
This week, ICP is in the thick of a rare UK/Ireland tour, please come out and see us if you’re within shouting distance (time and venue details in the above link):

release: 10.11.17

epic cinematic soundscapes from the drummer’s drummer

Erland Dahlen’s ‘Clocks’ presents the listener with a series of epic cinematic soundscapes. Although there is no actual film to illustrate, the imaginative power and suggestive resonance of Dahlen’s compositions easily stand comparison with the work of leading film composers. As Dahlen – whose previous album, ‘Blossom Bells’, was nominated for a Spellemannspris, the Norwegian ‘Grammy’ – is a drummer, one might first think of Antonio Sanchez’s percussive score for ‘Birdman’, say, but ‘Clocks’ employs such a broad range of sound-sources and musical reference-points that it’s probably closer to the atmospheric film-work of Tangerine Dream or Ryuichi Sakamoto. Police drummer Stewart Copeland’s music for ‘Rumblefish’ and the contributions to ‘Apocalypse Now’ by the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann come to mind, too.

Unrest is a new collection of masterly collages from the hand of Erik Honoré in which he captures, with absolute precision, the moods and tonal imagery of improvisations and weaves them together in a personal and evocative musical process. He has been joined by an impressive array of Norwegian improvisational musicians: Sidsel Endresen, Eivind Aarset, Arve Henriksen, Stian Westerhus and many others.

release: 03.11.17

Dear friends and jazz lovers !

The second edition of Scope Festival starts next week! We are pretty happy that we were able to convince some of the most talented musicians from Scandinavia to perform at our little festival. You find more infos and tickets on our website and the full lineup below. And if you have some time check out our festival trailer here.

Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra’s The Reason Why Vol. 3 is released in the UK on the 3rd of November on Headspin Recordings.  In addition to the CD and DL versions here will be limited edition pressing available on yellow or purple vinyl.

The Security Project has once again reinvented itself, this time with vocalist Happy Rhodes. Together withJerry Marotta (drummer from Peter Gabriel’s first five records), Trey Gunn (King Crimson), Michael Cozzi(Shriekback) and NY keyboardist David Jameson, the group continues reimagining the early work of Peter Gabriel (and also, on this disc, Kate Bush), but with Happy’s impressive four-octave vocals adding an entirely new dimension.

Here we got the latest upcoming recording from Norwegian renowned Rune Grammofon label.

Following in the footsteps of In The Country and Espen Eriksen Trio, Kjetil Mulelid Trio is the third piano trio to appear on Rune Grammofon. Although they can be placed in the same musical landscape, it ́s also fair to say there are certain obvious differences. There ́s a solid dose of youthful playfulness and curiosity at work here, at the same time they show an assured maturity that belies their age (26, 26 and 29).