Sailing to Byzantium

In December Rune Grammofon released another beautiful collection, the 4 X 10" box "Sailing to Byzantium", a "strictly one-off edition of only 500 copies".

You get a nice selection of Rune tracks, perfectly "themed" on the different records, a fold out poster and a Rob Young interview with label boss Rune Kristoffersen and designer Kim Hiorthøy.
Arve Henriksen´s "Silver Box" is an exclusive.

Blue:
Hedvig Mollestad Trio – Sing, Goddess
Bushman´s Revenge – As We Used To Sing (Live)
Scorch Trio – Kjøle Høle

Green:
Motorpsycho – Year Zero (A Damage Report)
FIRE! – Your Silhouette On Each (Without Noticing)
Elephant9 – Hardcore Orientale

White:
Phaedra – Honeydewed Autumn
Jenny Hval – Blood Flight
The Last Hurrah!! – The Lonely Whistle Call
Hilde Marie Kjersem – That Day In The Shower
Tove Nilsen – Jordan

Red:
Sidsel Endresen & Stian Westerhus - Drawing An Arc
Maja Ratkje - Intro
Alog – Baklandet
Espen Eriksen Trio – In The Woods
Nils Økland – Blond Blå
Arve Henriksen – Silver Box


Look for the previous samplers from Rune Grammofon here.

Duos on Rune

I´m a bit late with these two albums on Rune Grammofon, but finally having had time to listen, consider this a recommendation of the two, and check them out yourselves!
And with great music, you are never too early or too late. True?



Evan Parker & Joe McPhee: "What/If/They Both Could Fly" (Rune 2013) is a recording from the Kongsberg Jazz Festival 2012, and you may even watch a few minutes from the concert in the video above.



James Plotkin & Paal Nilssen-Love: "Death Rattle" (Rune 2013) is a wild, raw and fantastic guitar - drum duo album! Just listen to the track "The Skin, The Colour", worth the money by itself!

Organize your own PUNKT festival

I didn´t make it to the PUNKT festival of Kristiansand (No) this year, so I have compensated by listening quite a lot to the new albums from Arve Henriksen and Jan Bang.

If you buy Henriksen´s "Places of Worship" (Rune Grammofon 2013) and Bang´s "Narrative from the Subtropics" (Jazzland 2013), you will have most of the central members of the PUNKT gang on two discs. I recommend both of them!

Arve Henriksen is taking us to different places of worship, with titles like "The Sacristan", "Abandoned Cathedral" og "La Cimetière Marin", together with Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Lars Danielson, Stahlquartett, Eivind Aarset, Jon Balke, Ingar Zach. Beautiful music with a dark edge to it, and the album ends with the touching "Shelter from the storm" with Erik Honoré singing.

Jan Bang is traveling the Subtropics this time, on "Narrative from the Subtropics" (Jazzland 2013), presenting 13 pretty short tracks of intense music, using both poetry reading (in Norwegian by Nils Chr. Moe-Repstad), traditional Estonian singing (Tuule Kann) and a bunch of great musicians. the full list of participants: Jan Bang, Lars Danielsson, Sidsel Endresen, Dai Fujikura, Tigran Hamsayan, Arve Henriksen, Erik Honoré, Robert Jürjendal, Tuule Kann, Nils Petter Molvær, Nils Chr. Moe- Repstad)Undark, Stian Westerhus, Eivind Aarset and David Soler.

If you want to read some more than my short message, here are the AAJ reviews of "Narrative from the Subtropic" and "Places of worship".

Rune Grammofon gave me a CD version of the Arve Henriksen album too, when I bought the LP, Jazzland didn´t even offer a download code with the vinyl. Now who won that competition?

Maja Ratkje: "Voice" (Rune Grammofon 2002/2013)

Maja Ratkje´s first solo album "Voice" (Rune Grammofon 2002) is now out on vinyl (still available on CD too).

The music was recorded around Oslo, on (citing the cover:) Gemini tape recorder, hard disk, dictaphone, minidisk and different samplers", and was produced by Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje and Jazzkammer.

This is still a stunning album, it´s fun, beautiful and downright scary. Try the track "Insomnia" on full volume, a guaranteed hair raising experience (if you have hair that is).

I´ll tell you a secret today. When I was a very young man, I used to turn off all the lights in my room, lay down on my back on the floor, and play Pink Floyd´s "Careful with that axe, Eugene" (the track you heard during the explosion in "Zabriske Point"), turning the volume up to eleven.
If I was sure I was going to be able to get up from the floor these days, I might try the same thing with "Insomnia".

Cover: Kim Hiorthøy.

The Last Hurrah!: The Beauty of Fake (Rune 2013)

HP Gundersen and his band The Last Hurrah! just released the summer album of the year on Rune Grammofon.

"The beauty of fake" is a 35 minutes long suite, where you get a fine mix of (among other things!) sweet pop music, Norwegian and eastern folk music (Hardanger fiddles and all) and relaxing Hawaiian music.

I detect a smell of hippies here, so let´s just mention some of the suites subtitles: "The Trip", "In India" and my favorite "High in Hawaii".

I´m not really sure if HP Gundersen (drone guitar and other guitars ++) and Heidi Goodbye (vocal) are the ones defining themselves as The Last Hurrah!, and additional musicians are added when they drop by, but here are the rest of them: Ivar Thormodsæter, Yuyeu Zheng, Esau Pinto, Alex Grieg, Silje Solberg, Daniel Birkeland, Jørgen Sandvik, Viktoria Winge, Johanna Vatne, and the one and only Jon Irabagon (saxophone on "In India").

If you feel that 35 minutes is a bit on the short side, hurry up and get the double vinyl edition with a live recording from a concert at the Bergen Kjøtt venue, with Jon Irabagon in the band. They play old Hurrah! tunes like "Chromatic Hysteria", "Mother Nature" and "Melodi Grand Prix 63", and also new ones "Joe Meek" and "Hit Me". Only 300 copies made!

Playing on the live recording are HP Gundersen, Heidi Goodbye, Sonja Otto, Silje Solberg, Jon Irabagon, Alex Grieg and Nils Are Drønen.

Buying the double vinyl edition, will also get you the CD version of "The beauty of fake". Nice package indeed!

Make sure you check out the previous fine releases by The Last Hurrah! too: "Spiritual Non-Believers" (Rune 2011) and "The Great Gig In Disguise" (Rune 2011, 10" vinyl, 500 copies).

Cover: Kim Hiorthøy.

Das Wohltemperierte Spunk

Respect to Spunk! What a project!

It has taken them 12 years to play their way through the 12 notes of the equal tempered scale: one note each year, on a set day somewhere in Oslo!
The music was recorded and is being released by Rune Grammofon in a beautiful six CD box called "Das Wohltemperierte Spunk".

Spunk started at The Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum 20.01.2001 - 20:01 with B, and finished with the G 20.12.2012 - starting at 20:12 in the Physics building, University of Oslo.

I have played all of the CDs this weekend, and it´s massive! We get almost seven hours of droning improv, and you better listen! The music does not work very well as ambient music, at least not for me.

Several of the recordings were done outdoors (on an island, by a river, on the roof of the Ospera House) and C was recorded inside the Oslo City shopping mall.
The voices, the weather and the birds fit in just fine!

Spunk is Kristin Andersen (tp, fl), Lene Grenager (cello), Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (voc, viol, harmonica, accordion, theremin, + misc) and Hild Sofie Tafjord (french horn, + misc).

500 copies are for sale (300 NOK) from Rune Grammofon.

Liner notes: Anne Hilde Neset and Rob Young.
Cover design: Kim Hiorthøy.

I haven´t been able to locate lots of reviews on this box, but the Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter called it "deeply fascinating" (not online), and I agree on that.
I would really like to read an expert review on this one, so please comment if you have seen some.

And congrats to Maja Ratkje who has been nominated for The Nordic Council Music Prize 2013!

Added 25 February: A great review by Thomas Millroth in Sound of Music - "Vältempererad Spunk", in Swedish.

News from Rune Grammofon

Let me share some info, taken from Rune Grammofon´s newsletter.

Grand General - Grand General - CD/LP out now.

The band:
Even Helte Hermansen - guitar (Bushman´s Revenge)
Ola Kvernberg - violin
Erlend Slettevoll - keyboards (The Core)
Trond Frønes - bass (Sunswitch, El Doom & The Born Electric)
Kenneth Kapstad - drums (Motorpsycho)

Upcoming releases:

15.02 SPUNK - Das Wohltemperierte Spunk (6CD)

15.03 Hedvig Mollestad Trio - All Of Them Witches

12.04 Motorpsycho - Still Life With Eggplant

19.04 Jenny Hval - Innocence Is Kinky

20.04 Bushman´s Revenge - TBA (Live, LP only)

Panzerpappa: "Astromalist" (Rune Grammofon 2012)

Norway´s best (?) prog-/Canterbury-band will finally release a new album, this time on Rune Grammofon, six years after their phenomenal "Koralrevens klagesang".
"Astromalist" is out on Octber 5th.

These guys are in the band: Jarle Storløkken, Steinar Børve, Trond Gjellum, Anders Krabberød and Hans-Petter Alfredsen.

More info (in Norwegian) on Facebook.

El Doom & The Born Electric

Let me just inform you that Rune Grammofon just released a 7" vinyl with El Doom & The Born Electric.

I´ll admit that I still can´t say I love their prog-album released in January, but the single sounds a bit fresher. None of the tracks, "The teeth that match my wounds" and "The driven man that I am", are on the album.

Download the music if you like, but 500 persons might get hold of one copy each of the vinyl edition, with a great Kim Hiorthøy cover (slightly cut in my picture)!

Bømlo brenn om natta

Espen Sommer Eide just made a video for the hit "Bømlo brenn om natta", taken from Alog´s album "Unemployed" (Rune Grammofon 2011).
Jaap Blonk is singing Nicholas Møllerhaug´s Norwegian lyrics about his grandfather, who was a road worker. The title is something like "Bømlo is burning in the night" in English, perhaps an image describing working with hot asphalt?

Buy the CD version or the glorious 4 X LP box, that was recently reviewed in The Milk Factory.

Volcano The Bear

Volcano The Bear is Clarence Manuelo, Aaron Moore and Daniel Padden. I have never heard about the band or the musicians, until now, but according to a very short Wikipedia article they were formed in Leicester, and have played since 1995 (not with the same musicians all the time though).
Rune Grammofon just released the album "Golden Rhythm/Ink Music". It contains both new stuff and recordings from 2006 and 2008, without ruining the feeling of a solid album.

I was not sure about this one, but Rune´s description convinced me: "A calculated hysterical melting pot of This Heat, Robert Wyatt, Faust and The Residents, of musique concrète and ethno-folk, all seen through a prism of theatrical improvisations and unhinged set pieces".
And the description is not bad at all! What you get is a great mix of music that probably does not fit into any known genre. My favorites are the long, and quite slow pieces "The great reimbursing" and "Fireman show". Well worth your money and time, this one.

Cover by Kim Hiorthøy and vinyl edition with free mp3 download. Way to go!

Never Mind The Botox

I must admit my fondness for Bushman´s Revenge has been growing. They play some mean rock and roll and jazz and so on.
The trio is Even Helte Hermansen (guitar), Rune Nergaard (bass) and Gard Nilssen (drums, percussion, vibraphone), and they just released two brand new albums on Rune Grammofon.

They cover one artist only on "A little bit of big bonanza" (Rune 2012 CD, vinyl, file) (Sonny Sharroc´s "As we used to sing"), the rest is home made. One of the titles is worth the money in itself (at least in Norwegian money): "Hent tollekniven Ivar, det har stranda en hval", meaning "Go fetch the knife Ivar, we´ve got a stranded whale"!)!
Pretty energetic stuff most of this, but they simmer down in "John Lennon was the greatest man who ever lived" (!).

They play one home made tune on "Never mind the botox" (Rune 2012 vinyl, file) ("Bushman rock"), the rest are covers of Black Sabbath, Ornette Coleman, Bob Hund, The Police, Sun Ra and Black Francis.
I´m still working on Bushman´s Revenge´s cover of Ornette Coleman´s beautiful "Lonely Woman", but the rest get thumbs up.

Cover design by Kim Hiorthøy (surprise!).

Here is a recording from an in store concert at Big Dipper in Oslo (more on YouTube if you like).

Scorch Trio with Mars Williams

Late 2011, Rune Grammofon released 500 copies of a white vinyl double album with Scorch Trio. Scorch Trio is Raoul Björkenheim (g, el mandolin), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (el b) and Frank Rosaly (dr), and on "Made in Norway" (Rune 2011) they are joined by sax player Mars Williams.

The recordings were made at Cafe Mono in Oslo (23 May 2011) and at the Nattjazz festival in Bergen (25 May 2011). As usual Scorch Trio seem to improvise the track titles too, and we get sloo, oosl, loos, oslo, genber, enberg and bergen! I missed the Bergen concert (can´t remember the excuse), so I´m happy to have the album at least! Like it a lot!

Cover: Kim Hiorthøy.

Scorch Trio did release a live album some years ago too. "Live in Finland" was sold mainly during a 2007 tour, and only 400 copies were made. You may want to hunt that one too, but after you have got hold of the double album from Rune.

El Doom, Motorpsycho, Bushman´s, Susanna

Rune Grammofon are keeping up a tight release schedule this year too.
They already let loose El Doom & The Born Electric, and here are their plans for the first three months of 2012:

20.01 Bushman´s Revenge - A Little Bit Of Big Bonanza (CD / LP)
20.01 Bushman´s Revenge - Never Mind The Botox (LP)
17.02 Motorpsycho with Ståle Storløkken - The Death Defying Unicorn (2CD / 2LP)
02.03 Astrïd - High Blues (CD)
02.03 Volcano The Bear - Golden Rhythm / Ink Music (CD / LP)
16.03 Susanna - Wild Dog (CD).

Elephant9: Live at the BBC

You already have Elephant9´s albums "Dodovoodoo" (Rune 2008) and "Walk the Nile" (Rune 2010). Now it´s time to fight for the LP "Live at the BBC", also on Rune Grammofon! 500 copies made, white vinyl, no download code.
Two compositions from each of the two prevous albums ("I cover the mountain top" and "Dodovoodoo" from the first, and "Aviation" and "Habanera Rocket" from the second) were recorded for BBC´s "Jazz on 3" in November 2010. One take and no editing afterwards.

Elephant9 is Ståle Storløkken (keyb), Nikolai Hængsle Eilertsen (el bass) and Torstein Lofthus (dr).

Cover (as always) by Kim Hiorthøy.

Released! 10"

Fire! released "You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago" in 2009 and "Unreleased?" with Jim O´Rourke earlier this year, both on Rune Grammofon. Now you may go looking for a 10" vinyl with Fire! and Jim O´Rourke, with recordings from the same sessions as the ones that gave us "Unreleased?" (Tokyo, 12 and 13 Sept. 2010).
"Released!" is a great record too, and only 500 copies made.

Mats Gustafsson: Baryton saxophone, Fender Rhodes, live electronics
Johan Bertling: Electric bass
Andreas Werlin: Drums and percussion
Jim O´Rourke: Electric guitar, synthesizer, harmonica

Cover: Kim Hiorthøy.

The Great Gig In Disguise

As already mentioned in this blog, Rune Grammofon are ready for Christmas with four new limited edition vinyl releases (500 numbered copies).

And here we are with Bergen´s own The Last Hurrah!!, and their 10" "The great gig in disguise".
Side A is the folk-pop side, starting with a great HP Gundersen song called "Sleeping without you", and following with a cover of Sandy Denny´s "Who knows where the time goes".
Side B is the prog side, with another fine one from Gundersen ("Chromatic Hysteria") and The Last Hurrah!!´s Pink Floyd cover "The great gig in the sky", originally on Mojo´s tribute CD "Return to the dark side of the moon" (October issue 2011).

The musicians: Heidi Goodbye (voc), HP Gundersen (g, pedal steel), Nils Einar Vinjor (g), Sonja Otto (keyb, b voc), Alex Grieg (b), Nils Are Drønen (dr), Sam Fossbakk (ringmodulator, theremin), Tomine Mikkeline Eide (b voc) og Mari Persen (strings, string arrangements).

Cover (as usual) by Kim Hiorthøy.

More vinyl from Rune

Message from Rune Grammofon: To be released on 9th December, all vinyl only releases in numbered, limited editions of 500:

Elephant9 - Live at the BBC (LP)
Scorch Trio with Mars Williams - Made in Norway (2LP)
Fire! with Jim O´Rourke - Released! (10" EP)
The Last Hurrah!! - The Great Gig in Disguise (10" EP)

News from Rune Grammofon

Rune Grammofon just released the new Albatrosh album, and Eyolf Dale (p) and André Roligheten (sax) have received rave reviews already. Putting it on my shopping list right now!

The next releases from Rune:
Alog - Unemployed - RCD2116 / RLP3116 (ltd 4LP set)
Elephant9 - Live at the BBC - RLP2118 (ltd vinyl only)
Scorch Trio with Mars Williams - Made In Norway - RLP2119 (ltd vinyl only)
Fire! with Jim O´Rourke - Released - REP2120 (ltd 10" only)
The Last Hurrah!! - The Great Gig In Disguise - REP2121 (ltd 10" only)
Jono El Grande - The Choko King - RACD109 / RALP309

Rune Grammofon summer sale

If you do not own all of Rune Grammofon´s records, you might want to check their catalogue this summer. Here is what they say:
"Most of the CD titles in the catalogue are now on sale, many of them with a 50% deduction, down to NOK 59.00. This might be your best opportunity ever to fill some spaces in your collection. One of several items is the "Money Will Ruin Everything 2" book/2CD, which is a true bargain at only NOK 99,00".

The next three Rune releases will be:
Humcrush with Sidsel Endresen - Ha! - CD
Hedvig Mollestad Trio - First Chapter - CD/LP
Alog - Phinger - CD/LP