MURAL

Sunday evening I went out to get myself a solid dose of improvisation! The SOFA label trio MURAL was playing in Bergen with visual artist Kjell Bjørgeengen.
The concert was scheduled to last for four hours (no less!), so I settled for most of hours number 2 and 3, and what a fine experience it was!

Jim Denley (wind instruments), Kim Myhr (guitar, zither) and Ingar Zach (percussion) enveloped the small audience (some lying flat out on pillows) in varied and relaxing music, while the videoart added magic to the room.

MURAL released "Tempo", a recording of another four hour performance, on a 3CD-box set not long ago.
Have a listen to some of it here!

Ingar Zach and Miguel Angel Tolosa

Ingar Zach and Miguel Angel Tolosa’s debut album "Loner" was released on SOFA 23 January 2015.

To cite the label: ".. LONER is a result of many years of working together and of mutual admiration. The duo has collected material for LONER during the past ten years, and with a common facination for the mix of electronics, field recordings and acoustic percussion, they decided to start working towards an album with the material they had at hand".

Ingar Zach - percussion, electronics, field recordings.

Miguel Angel Tolosa - electronics, field recordings, electric guitar.

New albums on SOFA

Why don´t you have a listen to two new relases on the Sofa label?

Microtuba is Robin Hayward (microtonal F-tuba), Martin Taxt (microtonal C-tuba) and Kristoffer Lo (microtonal C-tuba). Their album "Star System" was recorded at Sjøbygda Art House in Selbu, Norway in April 2013. Microtonal and minimalistic, but please try to dance to the track "Squaredance" if you please.

Citing Sofa: "The 3-dimensional graphic scores used on the album Star System are subsets of the Hayward Tuning Vine, which arose out of a desire to visualise the harmonic space implicit within the microtonal tuba. Each of the balls represent pitches, and the struts between them musical intervals".


Michael Francis Duch´s "Tomba Emanuelle" was recorded in May 2013 at the Emmanuel Vigeland Mausoleum in Oslo, famous for it´s acoustics.

Citing M.F. Duch: "It is an unedited concert recording of a piece I have been working on since it was first commissioned by nyMusikk Bergen in 2012. It is for one or more bass instruments exploring different registers, timbres and acoustic effects of their instruments and their relation to the room it is being performed in".

Streifenjunko: "Sval torv" (SOFA 2012)

The Norwegian record company SOFA released their first vinyl record a couple of days ago.
And we get no less than a double album by the saxophone-trumpet duo Streifenjunko.

Eivind Lønning (tp) and Espen Reinertsen (tp) play really slooow improv, with drone like parts, sirene sounds, beautiful melodies, lots of breathing, and sometimes it sounds as they play the same instrument, mixing their sounds good.

Eivind Lønning and Espen Reinertsen have been in this blog before, just check out Koboku Senjû. The title on this new album "Sval torv" means something like "Cool peat", while Koboku Senjû´s album was called "Selektiv hogst" ("Selective logging") (SOFA 2010) and the two musicians also played on the SOFA album "Varianter av døde trær" ("Variants of dead trees") (SOFA 2008).
All titles fitting well with this slow moving, organic music.

Play loud in a room meant for music listening! I usually like listening on my iPod on the streets and inside buses, not minding the blending of music and sounds of the city, but too much of "Sval torv" gets lost.

Cover: Kjell Bjørgeengen/Rutger Zuydervelt.

Shop the vinyl version at SOFA and at streifenjunko.bandcamp.com.
On the bandcamp site you may altso have a listen, and download the album for at at least 50 NOK (about 5 GBP).

Muringa

How about some slow improvised music, that will come sneaking up on you? No?
Come on, give Muringa a chance, and listen to their "the unknown knows" on the SOFA label (2012). You will get a good half an hour of beautiful and exciting soundscapes.

The fine musicians are:
Klaus Ellerhusen Holm - alto saxophone & clarinet
Tor Haugerud - drums & percussion
Kim Myhr - guitars & objects
Martin Taxt - tuba

They have already been visiting the blog in bands like Mural, Koboku Senju and Silencers.

I have to admit that I´m happy to see that even Stef over at Free Jazz is having a bit of a hard time trying to explain why this kind of record is good!

At SOFA they make it all clear by saying that "Muringa gives the listener the hegelian third choice".
All right!