★Rune Grammofon
Sleeping Beauty
In 2021, the international contemporary music festival Only Connect commissioned an interpretation from I Like to Sleep of the first movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila symphony. A project which initially led to a 15-minute piece performed at the festival, with the trio re-writing the music of Messiaen, but also rewriting the music of their own. Messiaen as a reference and compositional tool may be heard in the album for those really listening for references. With “Sleeping Beauty” the tr…
Requies
A monstrous blast of jazz noise energy by the combustible trio with Sunn 0)))’s Stephen O’Malley and David Sandström of hardcore punks, Refused, on the mighty Rune Grammofon.
Defeat
**CD edition** Fire! Orchestra tracking new paths and reaching new levels of excellence, still honoring their 12-year-old vow of presenting a fresh approach to improvised music. Their debut album, You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago, was released in 2009 to wide international acclaim. "The basic strategy of pairing the expressive energy of free jazz with a sturdy sense of groove has yielded something potent and self-contained" --New York Times. Between this and Defeat there´s been five albums, includi…
Daymare
Taking their name from a Thelonious Monk quote, I Like To Sleep are three young Norwegian musicians, all 22 years old. "Nicolas and Øyvind first met in high school in Trondheim before they joined up with Amund in a youth big band. It soon became apparent that they shared the same musical background centered around 70s progressive rock, jazz, improvisation and classical music. Soon after the trio was formed, first for fun, but soon with higher ambitions, they won the prestigious "Young Jazz Music…
10
LP version. This is the tenth release in the Supersilent series. Since the very beginning, Supersilent have always moved forward with the greatest integrity. Supersilent's music is collective work, total group improvising, with not a whit of individual grandstanding. They never rehearse as a group and don't discuss the music with each other, meeting only to play concerts or to record. Every recording and every concert is a unique occasion, not to be repeated, and their music lives in a no-man's-…
Actions
LP version. Original score by Krzysztof Penderecki. New reading and conduction by Mats Gustafsson. The first (and until now only?) recorded interpretation of Krzysztof Penderecki's Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra took place in 1971 at Donaueschingen and featured the New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra, assembled by Don Cherry for the occasion and conducted by the great Polish composer. That orchestra also consisted of 14 musicians, including international jazz heavyweights such as Kenny Wheeler, Peter …
The Timeless Nowhere
The Timeless Nowhere features 42 tracks never previously available on vinyl (most previously unavailable on any format at all) and now distributed across 4 individual albums, each with stunning artwork by Kim Hiorthøy and assembled in a sturdy Box.In a world where being loud seems to be the only ticket for attention, Arve Henriksen has somewhat quietly and without much ado established himself as an important, major player on the European jazz scene. In his 20 years with Rune Grammofon counting 1…
Axis
The initial vinyl edition comes with a CD. The debut album from this Norwegian-American trio consists of two long tracks that move between intimate lyricism and hardcore expressionism, shaping one of the strongest free jazz offerings we have heard for quite some time. Filipino-American Jon Irabagon has topped both the Rising Star Alto Saxophone and the Rising Star Tenor Saxophone categories in Down Beat´s critics polls and been named one of Time Out New York´s 25 New York City Jazz Icons. Among …
Sult
Based upon Maja Ratkje´s music created for the ballet ”Sult” (”Hunger") by profiled director Jo Strømgren for the Norwegian National Ballet, this is a departure from records and live settings normally associated with Maja S. K. Ratkje, as we find her placed behind a modified, wiggly and out of tune pump organ, singing songs and improvising. Metal tubes, PVC tubes and a wind machine were built into the organ; guitar strings, a bass string, a resin thread, metal and glass percussion and a bow are …
Thou Shalt Boogie!
Formed in 2003, the Oslo-based trio Bushman's Revenge (named after a type of mouth-searing hot sauce) are upfront about their love for the progressive rock of Cream and Jimi Hendrix, the galactic jazz of Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock and Alice Coltrane, plus the raw power of Black Sabbath and The Pixies. Thou Shalt Boogie! is their sixth album for Rune Grammofon, a relationship that began with 2009's You Lost Me at Hello (RCD 2083CD/(RLP 3083LP). Its velvety, warm sound was captured at…
Electric Komle - Live!
Recorded during a show at the Storyville jazz club in Molde in May 2012, this could very well be Bushman's Revenge's finest recorded effort during their 10 years as a band. Bringing new meaning to the concept of loose but tight, they blend the freedom of jazz with the energy of rock in the most convincing of ways as they race through numbers from all their previous four Rune Grammofon albums, taking no prisoners along the ride. Drummer Gard Nilsen and bassist Rune Nergaard are just as comfortabl…
The Hands
LP version. Very much a tight knit unit with three equal players, Fire! has been likened to powerful guitar led trios such as Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but with Johan Berthling's heavy, doom-laden basslines being such a typical identifier, you can't help but think of Black Sabbath's debut album (1970) when it comes to hypnotic impact. The Hands is the trio's sixth album and it once again displays a totally uncompromising and intriguing mix of (mostly) heavy, dark, and intensely bu…
Melaza
Fourth album from the free-spirited power trio that should need no long introduction by now, apart from the significant fact that Frank Rosaly has taken over the drum stool from Paal Nilssen-Love. No mean feat, seeing how the hand-in-glove rhythm section of Nilssen-Love and Håker Flaten has graced a large number of recordings over the years and built a solid reputation as one of modern jazz and improv's most reliable units. That said, the Chicago-based drummer is doing a remarkable job in bo…
Made in Norway
Classic double live album from this free-spirited international trio, this time expanded with American sax player Mars Williams. Recorded live at Oslo's Café Mono and at the Nattjazz festival in Bergen, both in May 2011, this fully shows why new drummer Frank Rosaly can be considered the perfect partner to founders Raoul Björkenheim (guitar) and Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (bass), not to mention Williams, who fit in perfectly with only a minimum of rehearsals before these concerts. The interplay is …
A Little Bit Of Big Bonanza
This is the fourth album from Bushman's Revenge, and their third on Rune Grammofon. It's no secret that the label has a soft spot for this fabulous group and would wish nothing less than world domination for them. What they do seems to be an almost lost art when it comes to making records. Basically, meaning great musicians playing together in a proper recording studio, interacting and playing off each other. The tracks are mostly first or second takes, there is no editing and just a coup…
Jitterbug
This is the third album by Norway's Bushman's Revenge (Even Helte Hermansen, Gard Nilssen, Rune Nergaard). Like great records from Elephant9, Scorch Trio, Supersilent, In The Country, Spunk, Fire! and others, Jitterbug was recorded in the old fashioned way, meaning the musicians played together and interacted live in the studio with few or no overdubs. With classic recording studios closing down all over the world, this way of recording could indeed soon be a thing of the past, and the world …
You Lost Me At Hello
This is the second full-length release by Norway's Bushman's Revenge (Even Helte Hermansen, Gard Nilssen, Rune Nergaard). You Lost Me At Hello shows a distinct development from their debut Cowboy Music (Jazzaway, 2007). Founded by Hermansen and Nilssen in 2003 in their hometown of Skien, a couple of hours from Oslo, the trio aim to combine the jazz/improv background of the rhythm section with the rock/metal background of leader, composer and guitarist Hermansen to create their own expressive…
Axiom
It will always be difficult to pinpoint where free jazz started, but it´s reasonable to say it was shaped and cultivated in New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor were important players, as was Ornette Coleman. Axiom has significant historical importance by being what is quite possibly the first European free jazz record, even if it was not released at the time. Recorded in Copenhagen in October 1963, it should have been Tom Prehn Quartet's debut album for…
Xxx
XXX is a four LP collection featuring Scorch Trio's recordings. It includes Scorch Trio (2002), Luggumt (2004), Brolt (2008) and a radio session entitled Oval. In Norway, Scorch Trio was greeted with 6/6 reviews in the two biggest newspapers and The Wire said "the scope of their improvisational ideas is breathtaking", in spirit comparing the album to The Mahavishnu Orchestra's The Inner Mounting Flame (1971). Four years after Luggumt, Brolt was to become the final album with Paal Nilssen-Love be…
Bushman's Fire
LP version with bonus CD. Bushman's Fire, Bushman's Revenge's second live album, captures the band at Oslo´s rock den Café Mono at their most cosmic and trippy, taking their prog-jazz explorations into outer space and beyond. With an extended line-up including sax giant Kjetil Møster and Hammond whizz David Wallumrød they stir up quite a storm, with "Total Fucking Marmalade" being a brand new track, "Yoga", an extended workout of "Baklengs Inn I Fuglekassa" from Thou Shalt Boogie! (RCD 2151…