Norwegian Release: 14.06.2019
UK release: 06.08.2019
Star bassist and HUBRO veteran Mats Eilertsen presents his innovative cut and paste solo project featuring cameos from a supergroup of guests including Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Geir Sundstøl, Thomas Strønen and Per Oddvar Johansen.
The latest Solo album from Ståle Storløkken, legendary Supersilent keyboardist is unique in many ways. First, it explores the Solo formula to the very bottom. Not is he only playing all the instruments on the set himself, but also mixes them, masters tracks and records them. This way he had has absolute control over the material on every production stage.
Second significance comes from the fact that all these instruments are pretty ancient, belonging to the 80’s period when Synth Pop and Electronica were both on the leading edge of Futurism. Now by making that specific choice he brings that all into the path of one-off Retro-Futurism, which alone makes a nice hyperbola.
Together with whats mentioned above, finally even the title puts you in sort of an on hold mental estate, holding the listener between dreams and awareness, somnambulist like state of being in which there is no strong border between the “real” and the “imagined”.
Seven-part Suite starts with Prelude to The Haze of Sleeplessness. That dreamy intro holds into some sort of floating feeling executed with sounds which are pretty humble and created in a simple, straightforward way that instruments are allowing. Looping them, mixing them if one has a different vision of that is a must then and explains why the total control over entire material he claimed is so necessary.
Following Orange Drops, more percussive in nature, with simple melody driving that reminds me Vangelis or Tangerine Dream Productions. Here humbleness of the instrument and sounds made when they are played also are adding to the tissue and this physical aspect also adds to the retro feeling.
Short Reality Box is just a 90 seconds interlude but serves a charm of the barrel organ played with the mechanical whacking weaved into subtle melody. Another one splitting the tissue in the same way is called Turbulance and it replicates the sound of the fabrics flapping in the wind.
Describing them all would steal the pleasure of discovering from the listener, so I won’t go any further with that. It must be said that all the pieces are sharing the same sense of inner journey, which makes the listener drifting with his own imagination. Just the same as such a music always supposed to do. Sort of personal soundtrack for the imaginary movie which don’t even have to exist at all in the real life. What makes it interesting is the fact that with a majority of sounds we are listening to today, sounds like those do not appear, simply due to their synthetic nature goes far beyond eclecticism available now without specific postproduction steps. Very interesting journey for everyone addicted to the history of synthesized music.
Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund is an interesting personality to say at least. I can’t say I know lots of his work, but certainly recognise him from collaborations with Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Plus/Minus Ensemble, which in both cases gives quite a dispersion.
Here we are getting something utterly different as the music is not improvised and neither it is a contemporary classic repertoire. Instead it is sort of the Caribbean Joint containing all kinds of the exotic sounds. Starting with an orchestral intro titled Ritual 1, it sounds to my ears almost like a part of Zorn’s Latin Boys Goes to Hell gay porn movie soundtrack.
Then before the first shock had gone one jumps into syrupy Hawaiian cocktail of sounds like the sort made in 50-60s Iliadic productions about the Beach Paradise life, full of sun, romance and birds singing in the sky, accompanied by equally picturesque littoral life bubbling in sweet unisons. All that sketched with the deliverable vivid and eye glazing fashion.
The deeper into Paradise the more Lovebird like the song becomes, counterpointed with nice and wavy strings putting the final shivering with due sense of touch into the picture, with grass laying aside much like Dorothy stepping into the Land of Oz.
But bare in mind that Øyvind is a proper Nordic, not the surfing Polynesian, hence the landscape shortly faces a challenge and changes rapidly. With Waking Up Again, the game the picture becomes stormy and distorted. The music is written in a really lovely way with moods changing as it travels through the orchestral rows, building a storm and then realising the tension with long brassy waves, both illustrative and super-sonic in the same time.
The deeper we walk into the island the landscape changes from an idyllic sand dune to wet and lucid humidity of the rain-forest. The plunking pizzicato played by strings are building a real sense of the dripping wet surroundings in this Rainforest Morning.
As one would expect after an intense shower like that with all but windy breeze boiled by an orchestral culmination, next in the front of your eyes, with the raising sounds of flying over the band harp, Rainbow Crystal appears, fully present and with all the colours shining right in front of your eyes,
Coming after Jungle Alarm, with a rhythmic theme build on the percussive patterns imitating damped and distant sound of Tam -Tams nicely brakes the Sun rays and builds some tension.
My favourite piece is the Cave, near the end of the recording, containing an imaginative dialogue between the sax, played by Kjetil Moster and electronic soundscape, created by Jorgen Traeen. With all the over blows and echoes the windy, cold and spacious image of the inside of the cave had been sketched.
Closing, Out of the Jungle, takes Us in a great style back home after a sweet tropical romance with the melody swinging in tears dripping from your girlfriend’ eyes, when the big “THE END” and dropping curtain are both marking the end of the story. It is Joyful music one will be coming back to with a wide smile. I certainly am.
Norwegian release April 5, 2019
International release 25th of May 2019
Cinematic C&N (Country & Northern) goes Pacific as West Norway chapel grooves encounter Polynesian-influenced steel and slide featuring the amazing Geir Sundstøl on pedal steel.
Norwegian release: March 29th
Worldwide Release: April 26th
This Retro-futurist cinematic synth-fest from Supersilent keyboardist and composer, Ståle Storløkken, is already launched on its native Norwegian market and we are just about three weeks to join the happy crowd too. Those who are interested can already taste the water here and bite a bit of our teaser and learn little more about this unusual project and why it is worth checking. We hope that you will enjoy this 
Release: March 15th
Øyvind Torvund’s super-maximal adventures in far-out Exotica: think John Zorn hanging with Stockhausen in Martin Denny’s kon-tiki lounge. But it is not just a simple trip to the cartoon – land. Far from that actually and it contains more exotic notes than anyone would expect from the land of fjords.
Multi-instrumentalist and guitarist Geir Sundstol, put together quite interesting bunch of musicians to contribute on his latest, 3rd recording. Music itself is truly interesting as well.
It has a strong cinematic influence and to a guy like myself who grew up on movies like Paris – Texas, Wings of Desire and remains a great fan of music of Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone alike and Ray Cooder or Bill Frisell to get down back to the planet guitar, it brings back a lot of memories.
An opening Snev is a nostalgic theme of incredible fragility. Very narrative and healing with an unavoidable trace of sadness. Coming after Leben, with a slide guitar and harmonica lines is probably the most reminding Spaghetti Western soundtracks, but here it is specially spiced with Nils Petter Molvar’s trumpet lines. Also, timpani drums, musical saw and many other percussive instruments are adding to the flavour a sort of shaky feeling with a trace a suspense. General tissue reminds me what I remember from Bowie’s Low, the middle of its Berlin trilogy.
Saying that it must be said that the saddest music he ever wrote, The Warsaw appears on that mix too as it comes to me as somehow natural consequence, except the fact that here it is mixed up with Coltrane’s Alabama – another very meaning theme originally issued on his album Live at Birdland (1963) to tribute the victims of the KKK Black Church massacre.
Recently I heard Alabama live on stage with Jack De Johnette quartet including Ravi Coltrane and Matthew Garrison, both children of the fathers who took a part of the original session. Looking at the social and political context of the days we are living in makes you think that it is not accidental that this music comes back to the surface just today.
A year before, British drummer Dylan Howe paid his own tribute to Bowie’s music on his Subterraneans album which I also heard on stage and had a pleasure to review after, but that was more conventional jazzy approach. Low grows Big again then and keep inspiring people.
Anyway, to Polish listeners like myself Bowie’s theme had been borrowed from piece called Helokanie, written by folk music and lyrics – performed by The Polish Song and Dance Ensemble “Śląsk” (Silesia) – conducted by Stanisław Hadyna. It is not just an obvious inspiration, but the fact confirmed by David himself in one of his interviews in which he handles the old Pronil record I also own, which he purchased somehow, somewhere, passing by ex-communistic block countries.
As music goes further we are getting more and more sunk into folk and bluesy lines coming out straight of the Delta tradition and then popularised by both mentioned above guitarists, with Blunder being most Paris – Texas soundtrack alike spiritually.
Interesting and chilling music which according to the artist supposed to be sad, but in my feeling, it came together very nostalgic. Maybe this is because Norwegians are so positive that they cannot really be sad in the same way as we are.
Whatever the truth is what matters in the end is that that this is simply wonderful recording embracing the listener with an outstanding charm.
The Moskus is not your typical piano trio as it looks on the paper. It still contains some of the elements that are typical for piano trio music, but not a lot. First of all, using different electronic keyboards, Hammond organs or upright piano, which seems to be additionally prepared de-tours from harmonies that usual trio fan is familiar with, secondly it is the way they do communicate.
The language is super simple. Almost pictorial. There is not a lot of tunes, neither some regularity of the patterns, It is a bit like a soundtrack to an old cartoon, Something sketchy about it, that makes it easier to visualise as if drawn for me rather than a score on paper.
Sometimes seriousness of the piano phrase is contradicted by the complete lapidaries of the instrument it is dialogue with, like the saw in a piece with no tittle, but a crazy mark like that one (**.), which with short movement lasts no longer in your ear that afterimage on your retina.
An obvious function of the instruments in trio had been dropped. It doesn’t work that way with them. Instead there is a constant will audible to prevent communication on very basic level, with such a straight feeling of temporality that tomorrow is looking almost like a far distant future. Structures are like butterflies, staying in air just for a blink of an eye and in the same time there is an instantly following feeling of suspension that the next step might not be certain either. That creates very quirky sense of balance and plays with the sense of gravity.
The music seems to be incredibly light, even if the groove from organs is constantly present and anchoring composition firmly the sense of its body is not that obvious at all. Perhaps this is the biggest achievement they made as a trio that is exists just like an illusion. Nothing firm one could hold on to. A floating energy which communicates, sparks, feeds and then disappears once it had been discharged. The fact that the description of that music is so physical rather than laying in a lyrical term makes it sort of Mechanique.
It might sound silly but once listened to it, this becomes more understandable. The simplicity is almost intuitive, like with children playing together on the playground and simply using what’s laying around to fit the purpose and fulfil the imagination. That feeling of randomness is most present part of their style to me. Percussivity becomes a second nature when life calls for it. Roughness changes places with finesse. And that one is not the Belle Époque kind either. Everything swings around in this improvised dance and now one seems to know who is leading it but they do not step on their feet either.
But such is a life inside the piano trio which doesn’t particularly need to use a piano at all.
It is a strange feeling to me to write about this music as it is not jazz by any meaning but in the same time I can feel with all pores of my skin where it drew an inspiration from and those roots are purely jazzy. So that makes a sort of a hyperbole, bringing non-jazzy children to the world from most jazzy possible parents and grandparents. So even if the music is not a Jazz per se it contains a whole lot of Jazz DNA in its heritage.
Here we got then the band of twelve Norwegian musicians performing their own six, most of the twisted composition I recently came across. An opening tittle piece Musikk! is striking from the first notes. It comes a very dance mix which contains in it ingredients like those from Sun Ra’s kitchen, but also a lot of spices that are typical for an Art Ensemble of Chicago, or for a AACM flavour in general. To that one can add Alice Coltrane’s modal experiments as well as psychedelic trips like those which Deavid Allen used to make with his Gong, Soft Machine or Banana Moon.
Deeper into woodlands it becomes even more exciting. Take the next one called Frampek. It doesn’t drop at all what they bought on the table at the beginning but to that it yet adds a sounds like a Mongolian throat singing, or para- theatrical vocal expressions which are not designed to walk together with the music, but more like Meredith Monk’s attempts, are hung in the air creating confusion and forcing listener to find the key to that intellectual expression.
Next one – Kallet, is one of my favourite there. The cacophonic illusion builds around simple fount clearly originating from the folk tune with its call and response function and lapidary motif repeated in chorales, between improvised and more congested sections. It has some silliness in it, call it provocative infantilism, which comes to the surface to push the pompous emphasis out of the pedestal.
Following Festen is a fast walking through the blues scales, bringing a bit of Arto Lindsay, a bit of AEoC, but also a lot of funky- punky tunes which are sounding to my ears like some known motifs, which I however can not identify. But I have a gut feeling that this pulp is again bought here for the reason, to realise an existential tension and point that life doesn’t have to be serious at all. Looping some sounding Circus alike orchestral culminations into the outro kind of roots this feeling even deeper into my head.
Following Portrett, in similar style uses descriptive nature of instruments to sketch in your imagination like in the book. Rain I hear in the background and stepping piano are making it all more nostalgic. Lovely trumpet solo in the back ground, occasionally joined by tuba create wonderful brassy tissue which feels dreamy and cloudy but entertains with the edgy culminations coming from band’s tutties.
This music runs away from definitions and more importantly sounds just as fresh no matter how often one keeps returning to listen to it. Now, together with ongoing heatwave it makes me levitate and I hate when it stops.
Release: November 23rd
The guitarist, composer and performer Kim Myhr, whose previous Hubro release, ‘You | me’, received the accolade of a shortlist nomination for the prestigious Nordic Music Prize, composed the extraordinary music and text piece ‘pressing clouds passing crowds’ as a commission for the 2016 FIMAV-festival (Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville) in Quebec, Canada. It features Myhr on 12-string acoustic guitar alongside an expanded version of the celebrated Montreal-based string quartet Quatour Bozzini with percussionist Ingar Zach (Huntsville, Dans les Arbres) and the voice of the poet Caroline Bergvall, reading her own text.
