1982 Festival

What a great music weekend we just had at the 1982 Festival at Bergen Kjøtt, with four evenings dedicated to the music of 1982 and friends.

A short version of the happenings:

- BJ Cole playing pedal steel with the trio, and no doubt enjoying it. Very nice!
- Kristin Bolstad adding electronics, and both prerecorded and live samples to the folk improv. Worked fine!
- Lumen Drones (check their ECM album!) bringing some volume, rock and drones, ending up inviting the full 1982 trio to participate on a couple of wild numbers!
- Fredrik Rysjedal´s animation, telling the story of his grandfather, to 1982´s music. Touching!
- Trygve Seim and Stian Omenås making 1982 a quintet for the first time, and you may also spot a little guest behind the drums there, making it the 1982 sextet.
- Sigbjørn Apeland presented his new solo project working with instruments that are not working! Quite dusty too some of them. First time I have seen him with a guitar!
- Fredrik Ljungkvist and 1982 playing a quiet and beautiful Sunday concert.
- Elisabeth Færøy Lund exhibiting her photos of houses in a Swedish street.

All four (highly recommended!) 1982 albums have Elisabeth Færøy Lund´s photos on the cover.

As always click on photos for larger versions. If you still wonder about that person with "wings" in photo number two, let me tell you that it is just Sigbjørn Apeland and the only (and quite dead) houseplant in the venue.

1982 at Inage Candy (Japan)

1982 at Jazz Spot Candy, Inage, Chiba (Japan), 17th October 2013 (via EigenKino on YouTube).

Musicians: Sigbjørn Apeland (piano), Nils Økland (Hardanger fiddle) and Øyvind Skarbø (percussion).

1982: "A/B" (Hubro 2014)

"A/B" (Hubro), The fourth album from the trio 1982, is out in record shops (and on digital shops too I hope) tomorrow (2 May 2014).

This time they move a bit away from the folk-improv they have stuck to until now. I only have the CD version so far, but the album is easily recognized as an old fashioned LP with two quite different sides (A/B).

The first track is an eighteen minutes long contemporary classical piece (named 18:16 of course!), where Stian Omenås composed music for five horns, that was overdubbed on music recorded during the sessions for the Pintura album (Hubro 2011). A fascinating and really nice piece!

The 1982 trio is Nils Økland (hardanger fidle, violins, voice), Sigbjørn Apeland (harmonium, piano) and Øyvind Skarbø (drums, percussion).
The extra musicians on the track "18:16" are: Fredrik Ljungkvist (clarinet), Erik Johannessen (trombone), Sofya Dudaeva (flute), Hanne Liland Rekdal (bassoon), Matthias Wallin (tenor horn) and Stian Omenås (conductor).

Even if Sigbjørn Apeland plays the piano too , not only the organ, and Nils Økland sings on one track, the music on "side B" is more like the old folk-improv we all love, and some of it is so beautiful that it almost hurts.

Cover: Elisabeth Færøy Lund / Yokoland.

Buy or borrow this album (and their previous ones), don´t steal.

Taken from Hubro´s site:
"Recently 1982 has also made a recording, not yet finished, with a fourth person. The group will participate in a live project related to animated film, and will compose a commissioned work for NOTAM (the Norwegian Center for Technology in Music and the Arts). The members of the group have also begun thinking about yet another recording project to be completed for the trio’s 10th anniversary in 2017".

Concert and festival organizers beware!

1982 + BJ Cole and BJ Cole + Poulomi Desai

Sigbjørn Apeland (fiddles, violins), Øyvind Skarbø (dr, perc) and Nils Økland (org), aka the great folk-impro trio 1982, were invited to play at the Sildajazz festival in Haugesund (Norway), with pedal steel guitarist BJ Cole.

1982 played while walking the stairs too, and don´t forget the "1982 + BJ Cole" album on Hubro!

In July, BJ Cole (pedal steel guitar) and Poulomi Desai (prepared sitar) played at Cafe Oto in London.
More info on that happening to be found on YouTube.

BJ Cole

Just a reminder that the folk impro trio 1982 (Sigbjørn Apeland, Øyvind Skarbø, Nils Økland) will play with pedal master BJ Cole again, at Haugesund´s (Norway) Sildajazz festival in August.

Enjoy BJ Cole with the Hank Wangford Band in the video, and don´t forget the album "1982 + BJ Cole" on the Hubro label.