29.06.2008
THE THING: NEW ALBUMS!
Pitchfork has a newspiece about the upcoming The Thing releases with among others Jim O`Rourke, Steve Albini and Otomo Yoshihide. For more details go here.
02.06.2008
ORIGINAL SILENCE TO PLAY OSLO`S ØYA FESTIVAL
Original Silence will play Oslo`s Øya Festival Thursday the 7th of August at Rockefeller, support by Japanese instrumental girl trio Nisennenmondai. This will be full line up, except Jim O`Rourke, which means: Mats Gustafsson, Paal Nilssen-Love, Terrie Ex, Thurston Moore and Massimo Zu. To buy tickets go www.billettservice.no/html/evinfo.htmI?CNTX=4509444&l=NO&C=here.
02.06.2008
NEW ORIGINAL SILENCE LP
We will release a new album with Original Silence. For more details such as artwork, tracklisting etc, check out the Pitchfork news story here. And yes, we will release it on vinyl, so it will be CD, digital and limited edition vinyl. Artwork by Kim Hiorthoy. And, the album is fantastic!
30.04.2008
SMALLTOWN SUPERJAZZZ PROFILE IN ALL ABOUT JAZZ
Check out this label profil on Smalltown Superjazzz in NYC`s great All About Jazz newspaper. The story, the philospohy, the plans and updated news on whats coming on Smalltown Superjazzz in the near future. You can read the whole thing here.
09.03.2008
SUPERJAZZZ SHOWCASE AT KONGSBERG JAZZFESTIVAL
Kongsberg Jazzfestival is the best jazz festival in Norway and one of the best in Europe. We are very happy to annouce that we will do a Smalltown Superjazzz showcase at this years festival. The whole Superjazzz crew will go to Kongsberg with preformences with: Original Silence (with Casper Brotzmann instead of Thurston Moore and Jim O`Rourke), Joe McPhee & Paal Nilssen-Love duo, Free Fall, The Thing with Joe McPhee and Ken Vandermark (!), Mats Gustafsson as well as the wild trio of Peter Brotzmann, Paal Nilssen-Love and Mats Gustafsson. The event will take place on Thursday the 3rd of July. For more info about it all and the festival please go here.
25.01.2008
THE THING BOX SET
We are pleased to announce that we will release a The Thing box set titled "Now And Forever". The box will include their two first albums, "The Thing" and "She Says" (with Joe McPhee), that were both released on Universal. The albums have been deleted for years, and we are happy to finally get these lost classics back in print. Also there will be a new CD with a new impro session. And; there will be a DVD with The Thing live at the Oya Festival with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on guitar. Note that the box will only be pressed in a edition of 2000 copies. The box is being made now and we`ll come back with a release date as soon as we know. Stay tuned!
03.01.2008
TWO BANDS AND A LEGEND: ALBUM OF THE YEAR IN THE WIRE AND ALL ABOUT JAZZ NEW YORK
The Wire has Two Bands and a Legend`s debut album as one of the best jazz/improv albums of the year. All About Jazz New York also has this great album on their list of the best albums of 2008. Check out All About Jazz here.
03.01.2008
THE THINGS GOES CHICAGO!
Wednesday, January 16th at The Hideout:
Set I - Mats Gustafsson - solo baritone and slide saxophones
Set II - Mats Gustafsson - saxophones/Dave Rempis - saxophones/Ingebrigt Håker Flaten - bass/Nate McBride - bass/Paal Nilssen-Love - drums/Tim Daisy - drums
Doors open at 9pm.
-Saturday, January 19th at The Velvet Lounge:
The Thing with special guest Jeb Bishop
Two Sets. First set starts at 9pm.
-Sunday, January 20th at The Hungry Brain:
Set I - Mats Gustafsson - saxophones/Mars Williams - saxophones/Ingebrigt Håker Flaten - bass/Steve Hunt - drums
Set II - Vandermark / Nilssen-Love Duo
First Set begins at 10pm.
13.11.2007
DEATHJAZZ FEATURE IN THE GUARDIAN
What happens when you mix the intensity of hardcore punk with the improv spirit of John Coltrane? There is a nice feature about this in The Guardian. Check out the feature here. Both Original Silence and The Thing are part of what The Guardian calls "deathjazz".
02.10.2007
AUTUMN RELEASES ON SUPERJAZZZ
We have a bunch of new releases for the autumn. We`re proud to present the trio of Peter Brotzmann, Mats Gustafsson and Paal Nilssen-Love and their raw power anthems "The Fat Is Gone". The autumn also sees the Free Fall trio and their follow-up to "Amsterdam Funk", the new album is titled "The Point In A Line" and was recorded in Chicago. We also have two mini albums; Mats Gustafsson&Paal Nilssen-Love`s "Splatter" as well as the Two Bands and a Legend EP "I See You Baby" which contains Groove Armadas "I See You Baby" (!), Donald Ayler`s beautiful "Our Prayer" as well as Mr Joe McPhee`s very own classic "Nation Time".
For more info about these releases check out new releases. Enjoy!
09.09.2007
FREE FALL: SCANDINAVIAN TOUR SEPTERMBER 2007
Saturday 15 Stavanger, Sting Nere
Sunday 16 Kristiansand, Kick Scene
Tuesday 18 Västerås, Culturen
Wednesday 19 Stockholm, Glenn Miller
Thursday 20 Bø, Bø Vertshus
Friday 21 Oslo, Mono
09.09.2007
THE THING "ACTION JAZZ": RAVING PLAN B REVIEW!
“It starts with sticks, and then into a big fat meaty sax riff before the cacophony truly begins. A bellowing, honking, spittling, spurting, throat-ripping calamitous lump of sound from Mats Gustafsson`s abused saxophone. The rhythm section isn`t content to play keep-up. Ingebright Haker Flaten`s double bass sprays volleys of notes, weaving, a palpitating pulse through vibration. Paal Nilssen-Love kicks his drums down the stairs of a high-rise building in the most precise manner possible. This is The Thing`s fourth album in their ongoing voyage to marry the aesthetics of garage-rock n`roll together with the sheer pure ecstasy of free-jazz. It’s a place where Lightning Bolt rightfully sit next to Ornette Coleman, where past conceptions of jazz are bent out of shape with a trio so raw you can smell them. It`s what jazz should be today, just the way I like it” (Plan B Magazine, UK)
15.08.2007
JAZKAMER: UK SEPTEMBER TOUR
Lasse and John are going on a UK tour. You can, and you should, catch them here:
07th - Colour Out Of Space Festival, Brighton.
09th - Newcastle, Star & Shadow, Stepney Bank.
10th - Edinburgh, Henry's Cellar Bar, Morrison Street.
11th - Glasgow, Nice 'n' Sleazys, Sauciehall Street.
12th - Leeds, The Fenton, Woodhouse Lane.
13th - Sheffield, Red House, Solly Street.
14th - Bristol, The Cooler, Park Street.
15th - London, no.signal @ S51 Factory.
01.08.2007
THE THING: GREAT 4 STARS REVIEW IN UNCUT!
"More punk jazz mayhem. From Scandinavia. Recent collaborators of Thurston Moore, this Norwegian based drums/bass/sax trio have earned infamy for their ear shredding free-jazz versions of White Stripes and PJ Harvey (they turn their hand to Ride The Sky by Lightning Bolt here). Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson can do delicate and ruminative (check his intro to Ornette Coleman`s Broken Shadows) but his default setting is a raspy, overblown screech that pitches up somewhere between Albert Ayler, Jimi Hendrix, a whinnying horse and the Benny Hill Show theme music, and is as thrilling as it is amusing and frightening" (4/5, UNCUT MAGAZINE)
24.07.2007
SEE JOE MCPHEE AND PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE LIVE!
Joe McPhee and Paal Nilssen-Love did a duo set at Molde International Jazz festival this week. You can now see parts of the gig at YouTube here. And, the recordings of this concert will be released on Smalltown Superjazzz! More info soon.
09.07.2007
DOWNLOAD SMALLTOWN SUPERJAZZZ FROM THRILL JOCKEY
You can now download the Smalltown Supersound and Superjazzz catalouge from Thrill Jockey`s new download site Fina. Check it out here
03.07.2007
YOSHIMI & MATS: SUNDAY TIMES REVIEW
"Mats Gustafsson is a Swedish jazz saxophonist who has collaborated with members of the left-field rock bands Sonic Youth, Gastr del Sol and the Ex. Yoshimi bangs metal and hollers for the mercurial Japanese trance-rockers Boredoms, and so entranced the Flaming Lips that they named an album after her. The first of the two tracks here spends three minutes establishing a magical grey area where snatches of voice and horn become indistinguishable; the second builds on this for 42 minutes, suggesting a free-jazz punk-rock rewrite of Joan La Barbara singing Morton Feldman's minimalist vocal scores." (Sunday Times)
12.06.2007
LASSE MARHAUG: A NORWEGIAN CLASSIC!
Lasse Marhaug`s The Shape Of Rock To Come has been voted the 19th best Norwegian album of all time (before A-ha among others)! We are pretty happy to see that we have got this noise classic into the Norwegian history books. Congratulations Lasse!
04.06.2007
ORIGINAL SILENCE + TWO BANDS AND A LEGEND: UNCUT REVIEW
"Sonic Youth`s Thurston Moore and Jim O`Rourke alongside some Norwegian free jazzers, and The First Original Silence compromises 2 long and noisy improvisations recorded on tour (3/5 UNCUT). Thurston also pens the sleevenotes for a more compelling companion album Two Bands and a Legend by Cato Salsa Experience and The Thing with Joe McPhee. These exhilarating free jazz versions of garage rock nuggets are three-minutes blasts of free energy that compete with prime MC5, guaranteed to appeal to the rock pig inside every jazz buff (4/5, UNCUT).
29.05.2007
ORIGINAL SILENCE: GREAT TIME OUT LONDON REVIEW!
"This wryly titled offering from Thurston Moore, Jim O`Rourke and two members of Nordic free-jazzers The Thing, among others, is a 60-minute(two-track) slab of awesomely intense, wholly improvised avant noise. It represents the appeal of extreme improv from Boredoms to SunnO))) - thus at what at first might appear as an impenetrable wall slowly opens up to reveal perversely beautiful wormholes of melody, rythm and texture. Not for the faint-hearted or the fragile-eared - or those in shared housing, perhaps - but still hugely thrilling" (4/6 Time Out London)
29.05.2007
NEW BAND ON SUPERJAZZZ: OFFONOFF
We`re happy to announce that we have signed the new free rock group Offonoff. This band is one half of the Original Silence and features Terrie from the mighty The Ex, Massimo from Zu and our own Paal Nilssen-Love! The album is finished recorded and will be released autumn of 2007. And it rocks!
29.05.2007
YOSHIMI & MATS: GREAT REVIEW AT MUSIQUE MACHINE
"This is a collaboration between one half of the Boredoms Yoshimi and Swedish sax and noise improviser Mats Gustafsson, and it's a real treat managing to be equally haunted, alien,beautiful and jagged. It’s 45 minute play time,a trip in the best sense of the word. Both of the pair handle electronics with Yoshimi producing some eerier, magical and strange vocalizing and Gustafsson sax splattering, sawing and choking out all manner of awkward yet rewarding sounds. The album opens with the 3 minute Soundless cries with thier arms in the air, it ushers you into bent theatrical come sinister interplay between the pair. With Yoshimi rich vocalizing that has an rising almost primal birth or awaken quality about it, and Gustafsson sax playing sounding almost like a wailing voice or string instrument. The second track And the children play quietly with the words on the floor, takes up the lion share of playing time clocking in near 43 minutes. It goes from been spaced-out and beautiful to hectic spacey and weird, to swirling and bizarre, to throbbing and psychedelic, to droney and noisey. Mainly having quite an improvised feel, but there are clearly some composed ‘musical’ elements too. A well rounded and varied collaboration that balances the feeling of surprise, invention and beautiful oddness very well." (4/5 Musique Machine)
20.05.2007
TWO BANDS AND A LEGEND: GREAT BBC REVIEW
The ultimate garage mauling.It's no surprise that Thurston Moore digs these two combos deeply, providing a rabidly enthusiastic sleeve endorsement. Norway's Cato Salsa Experience are indeed nothing of the sort: instead, they rawk with overloaded guitars like mangled girders, compressed into intricate gargoyle gobbets. Their collaboration with Scandinavian free jazz mayhem countrymen The Thing, plus blurting Stateside hornman Joe McPhee results in a beautifully excessive cataclysm, as this Antichrist assemblage contorts tunes by PJ Harvey, James Blood Ulmer and The Cramps, also giving Louie, Louie its ultimate garage mauling. (4/5, BBC)
16.05.2007
ORIGINAL SILENCE: BBC REVIEW
"There is nothing remotely ‘silent’ about Euro/US alliance Original Silence. Raw noise, sonic shocks, chaos and cacophony abound. But silence: no. Leaving behind all notions of melody, this is a turbo charged collision between punk-metal and free jazz: a super-band, concocted by Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, which is defiant in its lack of compromise. The Oslo-based Smalltown Superjazz is one of the most exciting indie labels in jazz. Yet Original Silence might be their most daring project yet – a group who bring together influences as disparate as Albert Ayler and The Stooges. Alongside Gustavsson on sax, the band unites Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston More with avant-jazz drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, metal bassist Massimo Pupillo (The Zu) and guitar slinger Terrie Ex (The Ex). Over two extended, free-jams (one at 14 minutes, the other over 45) the members stretch into blisteringly ugly improvisation. Easy to admire, difficult to listen to, the audience at this live recording in Italy in 2005 must have had stamina galore. The opener, '‘If Light Has No Age, Time Has No Shadow'’ sets out the group’s free-jam agenda promisingly: surreal, distorted sound effects and guitar jabs compete alongside kitwork from Nilssen-Love and strangled sax screeches from Gustafsson. Initially, these simultaneous experiments feel like a hardcore cousin of Acoustic Ladyland. Intense yet incoherent, however, they lack musicality and frequently veer into self-indulgence. Nilssen-Love is an excellent drummer and brings the most music to the set. Yet the corrugated iron guitars, multiphonic sax and effects-laden noise are tough going. Even as the epic second track, '‘In the Name of the Law'’, breaks into more subtle, thoughtful exchanges (after 20 minutes), and as Gustavsson works lyrical Coltrane-laden wails into the mix, the experience is more an act of endurance than pleasure. The musical equivalent of nails scratching a blackboard, or a heavy-metal twist on free-jazz’s most otherworldly excursions? Either way, Original Silence is not for lily-livered listeners." (BBC)
02.05.2007
ORIGINAL SILENCE: GREAT 8,0 REVIEW AT PITCHFORK
The Original Silence album is out now, and today it got a rave 8,0 out of 10 review at Pitchfork. You can read the whole review here. Yes it is really that great, just check it out if you don`t belive us!
10.04.2007
THE THING: NEW VENUE FOR NYC SHOW
The Thing gig in NYC on Tuesday, April 17th is now confirmed to be at LES Gallery, at Clemente Soto Velez at 107 Suffolk St. one block east of the Tonic - between Delancey and Rivington. The gig starts at 8pm.
08.04.2007
THE THING: GREAT REVIEW AT ALL ABOUT JAZZ
The Thing`s new album Action Jazz gets a great review at Allaboutjazz.com websitel. You can read the whole review here.
06.04.2007
YOSHIMI AND MATS ALBUM
Taken from the Pitchfork newspiece:
"Boredoms/OOIOO firestarter (and Flaming Lips inspiration) Yoshimi teamed with Swedish saxophonist and Thurston Moore/Jim O'Rourke collaborator Mats Gustafsson for the upcoming Words on the Floor LP, one of several collaborative albums due out on Smalltown Superjazz in April. Yoshimi and Gustafsson used electronics, tenor sax, baritone sax, alto fluteophone, and the rare slide saxophone to create one short three-minute piece and a second, droning track that exceeds 40 minutes in length. Together, those tracks form Words on the Floor, which will be released April 30 on Smalltown Superjazzz. Two Bands and a Legend is the self-titled debut of a group composed of Cato Salsa Experience, Joe McPhee, and the Thing (good luck!). The album's nine tracks feature the crew doing covers of songs by the likes of PJ Harvey and James "Blood" Ulmer. They even turn in a version of "Louie Louie". Thurston Moore contributes liner notes to the album, which Smalltown Superjazzz will release April 16. The Thing will head out on a tour of the U.S. in April." (Pitchfork)
06.04.2007
JAZKAMER TO PLAY ØYA FESTIVAL + NEW ALBUM
Jazkamer will release their new album "Artbreaker" on Smalltown Superjazzz (not Supernoise, no matter what Lasse says!) in August. In the same period the band will play at Oslo`s great Øya Festival, other bands on the festival is Boredoms, Bjørn Torske, Primal Scream, Coco Roise, Nine Inch Nails and many more. For more info about the festival go here
30.03.2007
THE THING: US TOUR IN APRIL
The Thing are touring US in April, to see dates and details check out the live section. The Thing`s "Action Jazz" is out now on Smalltown Supersound.
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