Soft Machine: Live at Henie Onstad Art Centre 1971
August 18, 2010Comments Off
Double LP out now! (SOLD OUT!)
“That’s funny, I don’t remember ever being in Oslo. Oh, hang on, yes I do… you’re right, that was a good gig!” Robert Wyatt
“I don’t remember that at all, but I’m very happy to know it’s a clean recording” Michael Ratledge
“That was one of the best gigs we ever played” Hugh Hopper
Limited edition vinyl release of the legendary recordings done at Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo, Norway in 1971. Artwork by Kim Hiorthøy. Soft Machine performing two sets of continuous compositions, improvisations and dynamisms captured in glorious Hi-Fidelity Stereophonic sound
Michael Ratledge; Organ, Electric Piano
Elton Dean; Alto Sax, Saxello, Electric Piano
Hugh Hopper; Bass Guitar, Duo-Fuzz
Robert Wyatt; Drums, Cow Bell, Voice
That the recordings made of Britain’s Soft Machine remain as rewarding and inspirational today as the moment of their making, qualifies the groups international stature as the most expressively intelligent of rock music’s progressive epoch. Born of the Beat Generation & Beat music, sacrificed on the clichéd tracks of jazz-fusion, the music in between by the classic quartet of keyboardist Mike Ratledge, saxophonist Elton Dean (1945-2005), bass guitarist Hugh Hopper (1945-2009) and drummer Robert Wyatt is mercurial genius manifest. Still and all, a creative apex where the music attained a ‘whole greater than its sum parts’, occurred on the evening of February 28th, 1971 at the Henie Onstad Art Centre in Oslo, Norway. Here, the group was afforded a rare crucible for their collective creativity by virtue of an intimate concert space, accurate amplification, and an appreciative audience. Also in Henie Onstad for his own Art Exhibition was Soft Machine’s friend Mark Boyle (1926-2005), who projected his sensory films during this concert. Thankfully, the performance was professionally recorded using classical ambient technique, and safely archived until the Henie Onstad Art Centre, and the musicians, granted Smalltown Supersound the honor and responsibility to present this magnificent recording for vinyl release. The results sound for itself as demonstrably the finest stereo recording of Soft Machine ever captured on tape. Live at Henie Onstad Art Centre 1971 is not simply another fascinating addition to a series of archival Soft Machine releases; it stands as nothing less than a gift for all.
Peter Brötzmann’ Chicago Tentet + 1
August 18, 2010Comments Off
5 CD Boxset out now!
You can buy the boxset here
Smalltown Superjazzz is very proud to present Peter Brötzmann`s Chicago Tentet box set. The boxset features 5 discs, all recorded over 3 nights in Oslo 19-21st of February 2009 at Victoria, Nasjonal Jazzscene. This is a free-jazz smorgasboard. Enjoy!
Details/tracklisting:
Disc 1: Chicago Tentet (53:15)
Disc 2: Sonore: Mats Gustafsson/Peter Brøtzmann/Ken Vandermark
(1) 12:48 (2) 11:25
Michael Zerang/Paal Nilssen-Love (3) 22:27
Johannes Bauer/Per Åke Holmlander (4) 10:54 (5) 7:21
Disc 3: Joe McPhee/Ken Vandermark (1) 9:38 (2) 10:14
Jeb Bishop/Paal Nilssen-Love (3) 15:00 (4) 14:36
Disc 4: Survival Unit III: Joe McPhee/Fred Lonberg-Holm/Michael Zerang
(1) 15:10 (2) 10:50
Trombone Choir:
Joe McPhee/Per Åke Holmlander/Johan Nes Bauer/Jeb Bishop
(3) 13:01 (4) 8:09 (5) 4:08
Disc 5: Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet + 1 (1) 36:32 (2) 16:28
Boxset with 5 CDs and 30 pages booklet, all designed by Peter Brötzmann.
Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet: 5 out of 5 in Guardian
August 18, 2010Comments Off
You can buy the box set here
“There’s a caveat to those five stars – they mean five for admirers of flat-out, no-prisoners, no-tunes free-jazz improvisation, which almost certainly adds up to zilch stars for listeners who run screaming from the room at such things. Veteran German sax thunderer Brötzmann spent three nights in Oslo in February 2009 with his Chicago Tentet, including saxophonists Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee, and this box-set sports no less than five CDs recorded during the residency. That might be overkill if it was only the tentet blasting dementedly for five hours, but the event was run much in the manner of the late Derek Bailey’s Company Weeks, with different combinations of players forming spontaneously to explore a remarkably wide range of moods and textures, with Brötzmann himself not in seven of the ad-hoc groupings. The set starts off with a furious full-band melee, but the brilliant Paal Nilssen-Love’s drumming soon insinuates a menacing groove, and briefly dominant alto saxes, snorty baritones, and huffing tubas quickly reveal how varied the tonal and dynamic resources are. Sometimes the group’s anthemic sax-choir sound suggests the roots of this approach in John Coltrane’s Ascension, but there are fascinating subgroups like the three-sax Sonore trio (chattering and clucking like garrulous farmyard animals), ecstatic drum duets, almost ballad-like lyrical episodes for saxophonists McPhee and Vandermark, abstract-improv passages for cello, electronics and percussion, all-brass conversations, and much more. It’s a virtuosic field day for free-jazz admirers with strong nerves.” (5/5, The Guardian)
Drivan limited edition LP
August 18, 2010Comments Off
We now have the Drivan “Disko” LP in stock. We have made 500 copies on white vinyl. There will be no repress. These will go fast, but you can secure a copy if you order it at our mailorder here
The Shrimp Punk Band
August 18, 2010Comments Off
We suspect this to be a Bjorn Torske/Toy project. It can’t be others
Diskjokke on wax
August 9, 2010Comments Off
Yes, the Diskjokke vinyl is now in stock. Its limited to 500 copies so this one will be gone fast. If you want to secure a copy you can buy it from our mailorder here
Drivan 4 out of 5 in Mojo Magazine
August 2, 2010Comments Off
“Swedish/Finnish/Norwegian ensemble Drivan is busy designer-cum-composer Kim Hiorthøy’s latest venture. Abetted by moonlightning dance/theatre types Lisa Östberg, Louise Peterhoff and Kristiina Viiala, Disko proffers intimate laptop folk, it’s bewitching Swedish language vocals underpinned by rudimentary guitars and Hiorthøy’s delightfully askew electronica” (4/5, David Sheppard, MOJO)
Tussle
August 1, 2010Comments Off
The multi-instrumental polyrhythmic beat-makers, bass-heads and knob twiddlers of Tussle has been expanding minds and killing dance floors with their krautrock infused musical musings ever since the project manifested itself in a San Francisco Mission district basement in 2001.
After three critically lauded albums, countless collaborations, sold out tours with RATATAT (2009), Hot Chip (2008), YACHT (2008), and Of Montreal (2007), plus dates with Cluster, Beach House, Gang Gang Dance, Javelin and
El Guincho. The band finds itself in that rare position between word of mouth in-the-know buzz and being a
bona fide national indie dance rock mainstay. Essentially, it’s the quiet before a massive musical electrical storm.
The past year has been nothing short of a whirlwind for Nathan Burazer, Tomo Yasuda, and Kevin Woodruff as
the band was awarded an Excellence in Electronic Music Award by Village Voice’s SF Weekly, a national tour with the with electro duo RATATAT and played cultural institutions such as Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and The Mission Cultural Center, as well as warehouses, dance clubs, festivals, house parties, forests and street fairs. This past year, the band also contributed music to the surf documentary film, Dear & Yonder and created sound installation for The Mission Cultural Center 2010 exhibition, “Today”.
Over the years, Tussle has released a handful of 12 inches, two EPs and three albums with imprints such as Smalltown Supersound, Troubleman Unlimited, Rong/DFA, and Tomlab. The newest album, ‘Cream Cuts’ (Smalltown Supersound) was produced by Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Au Revoir Simone, Joanna Newsom) and the album featured collaborations with Hot Chip front man, Alexis Taylor. Cream Cuts won world-wide critical praise as a “Krautrock-infused rhythmrock hybrid ” and the notoriety led to collaborations with dance rock pioneers Liquid Liquid and the glaswegian visual artist David Shrigley.
This all leads us to is their upcoming forth album with UK Luminary and OPTIMO co-conspirator, JD Twitch for the pioneering Norwegian label, Smalltown Supersound. So, fair warning—lock your stutters, break out the decks on the dance floors and get ready for Tussle’s storm of sound and the new soundtrack for the summer.
Cream Cuts press:
“Tussle’s innovative and spontaneous collision of sound paints a colorful portrait of a group with unhinged creativity, exuberance of energy and free of restrictions” – SOMA Magazine
“Tussle take the muscle and momentum of motorik and liberate it with a joie de vivre that makes Cream Cuts endlessly listenable” – THE WIRE, June 2009
“The SF groove machine’s third LP packs lessons learned from post punk and krautrock – into a rhythmic masterclass. **** four stars” – MOJO, August 2009
“Re-igniting the flame of experimentalism, Californian four-piece Tussle have emerged as pioneers of a new Krautrock-infused rhythmrock hybrid. ” – Skyscraper Magazine
tussle.org
Uncut’s blog about ARP
August 1, 2010Comments Off
Arp: “The Soft Wave” 2010-06-25 11:30:31
Some correspondence over the past week or so regarding The Alps, whose new album I must admit I’m yet to hear: the last one was pretty cool, something like a kind of psychedelicised Air, if I remember right.
Continued…
During the exchange, though, I was heavily recommending one of the Alps’ solo project, Arp. Alexis Georgopoulos made an album in 2007 called “In Light”, a terrific early runner in what’s become a quietly expansive kosmische revival.
Serendipitously, a new Arp album turned up from Smalltown Supersound a couple of days ago, and it’s fantastic, too. While a lot of the more acclaimed artists in this new kosmische/ambient thing seem to have emerged from a noise background and privilege a fair amount of ‘80s sci-fi chicanery – I’m thinking specifically Oneohtrix Point Never andEmeralds – Arp are part of a more pastoral wing, whose roots lie deep in the ‘70s German countryside.
Somewhere near Forst, perhaps, since, crudely, “The Soft Wave” runs the whole gamut of influences from Cluster toHarmonia, with a radical departure into the realm of Eno to change things up a little. It’s not the most original album I’ve heard over the past few months – “From A Balcony Overlooking The Sea” moves beyond being influenced by “Another Green World”-era Eno, towards a transparent, albeit exquisite, homage.
But it is quite lovely, a meticulous re-realisation of the percolating landscape music that Cluster perfected around “Sowiesoso”, and onwards through Harmonia (“High Life”, in particular, has a saturated line that recalls Michael Rother’s melodic sensibilities, if not explicitly his guitar playing). The odd drift of piano (on “Catch Wave”, say) also recalls some ofRoedelius’ later solo work, not least “Lustwandel”, which fortuitously turned up on reissue the other day.
At times, the gentle persistence of this music echoes that of The Alps (“Alfa (Dusted)” in particular). But from the opening and explanatory “Pastoral Symphony”, this is a real keeper – wouldn’t mind hearing the “Pastoral Symphony” remix byEtienne Jaumet, either.
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