Here at Efpi towers we’re all very proud to announce the release of Big Ideas, the eagerly anticipated debut album from our flagship ensemble, Beats & Pieces Big Band. Financed by the prize money won when they were named winners of the European Young Artists’ Jazz Award in Burghausen, Germany last Spring, the album is the culmination of the band’s efforts since their first ever gig at the Manchester Jazz Festival in 2008.
The band launched the album over the past couple of weeks with special launch shows in Manchester and London – highlights from the Manchester show at the RNCM were broadcast on BBC Jazz on 3 and the sold out gig at Ronnie Scott’s in London received glowing 5 star reviews in both The Guardian and The Telegraph, as well as heavy praise from Jazzwise magazine. The video below has some footage from the Ronnie’s gig, as well as a quick chat with bandleader Ben Cottrell about the band’s history and the new album and some post-gig reaction from some enthusiastic audience members.
The album is released on 12th March 2012, and available via the Efpi online shop or other online retailers such as Amazon.
We’re pleased to announce that Efpi’s own Anton Hunter is taking part in a residency all this week at the Band On The Wall, led by award-winning folk band The Unthanks. The aim of the week is to create an evening’s worth of music by collaborating with the band and with the other 11 musicians selected to take part. The fruit of their labours will be on Friday 10th from 7:30pm.
You can keep up to date with what Anton thinks at his website. And up to date with what everyone else thinks as well at this website (content will be uploaded throughout the week, nothing on there at time of posting).
For even more links to Efpi; Clive Hunte, who is playing bass all week, actually filmed some of the Beats & Pieces Big Band live DVD too. So there.
As part of the epic Efpi Records Showcase week Trio Riot have been out and about in England. We started up in style with 2 days rehearsing in The Dog and Partridge pub in my home town of Bollington. David and Mette threw themselves into the small town experience with a tasty local bitter, greasy fish and chips, and a walk up to the town’s hilltop monument, White Nancy. After this relaxing start we started the tour at the RNCM in Manchester and then headed to the Tin Angel in Coventry, The Forge as part of The London Jazz Festival and The Yardbird (run by the Cobweb Collective) in Birmingham. We had a great response at all the gigs, thanks so much to everyone who came down, especially the ones who also bought our highly exclusive hand-crafted CDs ;-) here’s a few pics and a video clip from Birmingham. Hope to be coming back to the small island soon!
I realised the other day that there are probably some people who don’t live in Trondheim, which then lead me to think that maybe there are some people who didn’t know how awesome it is. This made me sad. So seeing as last week was a particularly creative and love filled week (with a little help from our Swedish friends), I thought I’d take the opportunity to send a little bit of Trondheim to the masses. The masses of people that read this blog that is. So here’s the run down (with informative video examples) of what we got up to.
Wednesday kicked of with a double-double concert evening. First up, MoHa! were playing Klubb Kanin at Rockheim with support from Rema Tøsen (Rema being the Norwegian Tescos, and Tøsen being a slut). MoHa! were brutal, aggressive math rock being paired with near blinding synchronized lighting, quite an assault of the senses. In a good way. I was one third of Rema Tøsen, along with Ole Mofjell (drums) and Eirik Havnes (electronics), it was our first gig and hopefully not our last, I believe we played a psychedelic electronic improvisation, but feel free to correct me if that’s wrong… Here’s a vid of MoHa!, you’ll need to watch until 1:22 to get a good idea of what they sound like. And one of us.
The same night there were two performances at a new improvised music night run by Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø. The first act was a solo performance by Swedish sax player Anna Högberg, I unfortunately missed this, but I have seen her play a concert in a sauna in middle Sweden, so I can assume that it was great! Next up was Henrik (trombone) with Finn Loxbo (guitar), and Frøydis Dahlø (flute), they gave us a good dose of extreme and intense minimalism. Which leads me smoothly onto the Thursday night, where Dahlø/Loxbo/Nørstebrø played another performance with Frøydis on electronics this time, they were followed by a debut performance from the melodic and energetic Ebb and Tide, which was made up of Anna Högberg, Matilda Rolfsson (drums) and Elsa Bergman (bass). The night took place in small gallery called Artnest, and most imprtantly, coffee and cake was provided. Here’s a vid of those two bands.
Finally, on Friday night, Matilda Rolfsson, Erlend Albertsen and myself made a performance/installation at a Gallery Blunk. The artwork, Terra Incognita, was a slowly changing video installation and the artist was Rasmus Brinch. It was a really inspiring installation space to play in, and again, most importantly, beer, coffee and waffles were provided ;-)
Thanks to everyone involved, I’m looking forward to more weeks like this one!
Pink Fem’s self titled debut CD is available now as a high quality download! Just visit the Efpi shop to listen and purchase. For those of you who don’t know this Danish outfit, here’s a short introduction…
Pink Fem
It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the newest addition to the Efpi family, Pink Fem. The Danish group is best described as a rock band with a improv esthetic – their music is often dark, dense and chaotic but with a sense of ironic humor that pervades throughout. Pink Fem have been making great sounds this summer at Copenhagen and Aarhus (@ Phonognom) Jazz Fesivals, their self titled debut CD has been selling well at concerts and it is now available through the Efpi Records Bandcamp store. The album is also being sold at the shop of our fellow jazz crusaders Homemade Records in Copenhagen, so pop down there if you want to pick up a beautiful hand (and home) made copy.
Pink Fem are:
Ilari Filander – Guitar
Sam Andreae – Tenor Sax
Peter Skibsted – Bass
Kasper Tom – Drums
To my dear Efpi co-founders (you ignorant fellows) this Swedish festival is known only as “oh, that naked violinist in the river festival”, however to me it’s now definitely one of the highlights of my musical year. Granted (i believe it was last year) there was a naked violinist in a river, but that’s not all Hagenfesten has to offer. The family run festival, situated in the idyllic village of Dala-floda, focusses on both improvised and folk music with some of the most interesting Swedish and international artists from these areas performing.
I attended as a volunteer for the first time this year and arrived (rather bleary eyed) on the Thursday morning after an all night drive down from Trondheim. There are probably around 100 – 150 attendees at the festival at any one time and whole thing is run beautifully and with much care by the family, extended family and volunteers. The opening concert was a solo performance by Mats Gustafsson in a light and spacious local church. This was a fantastic opener for the festival and some of my other highlights included a power solo performance from the incredible Joëlle Léandre, Fred Lonberg-holms’s band Seval were beautiful and the Strid/Gustafsson/Russell performance captivated the entire audience with their intense improvisation from start to finish.
I can’t recommend this festival enough, it manages to bring together so many inspiring artists from diverse backgrounds and give them a truly kind and generous community to share their ideas with. What more could one want (did i forget to mention the great food, daily out-door swimming, sauna, natural wine, tasty tasty beer….). I look forward to seeing all my new hagenfesten friends next year and soaking up the good music and vibes.
Check me out, 2 posts in 2 days. Amazing, it’s not like I’m trying to avoid finishing my Masters Thesis or anything….
Anyway, me Hanna, Gus and Alex have just got back from our spring tour as Silence Blossoms, we played all over Norway, Sweden and Denmark and had a truly rewarding experience. The tour started in Trondheim (after Hanna, Gus and Alex drove over 1000km to get here then got a flat tire 15min from my house at 4am….) playing at the cosy Antikveriatet to a lovely crowd then we headed off to Oslo, Karlstad, Vesterås, Linköping and Stockholm where we had a few days off to hang, then continued to Skurup, Malmö and Arhus. We recorded most of the gigs and I’ll attach some highlights below. Also, we started our own CD sweat shop, basically, whoever wasn’t driving, made CDs. Some of them even turned out to be true art ;-) I have had several requests for more information about the poetry we use and the authors of it, if you follow this post to the bottom I’ve tried to track down some that are available online, feel free to brows them!
This is something I’ve been working with on and off over the last couple of years and I thought is was about time I put something about it out there on the wonderful world wide web. Inspired by my Manchester noise colleagues Anton Hunter and Rodrigo Constanzo (The Noise Upstairs gang) I was sent down the dark path of circuit bending and general electronic sound goooodness. Since then I’ve been busily soldering away in various closets across Scandinavia and have finally got myself a set-up that I think (at least to my ears) has some potential. So here it is, my first solo performance using an entirely analogue electro-acoustic sax set-up. Also some nice pictures of the guts of the thing. Also big thanks to Arnfinn and the Lydeksperiment guys here in Trondheim, it’s a fun and inspiring club to go to. Also check out Peter Blasser and Ciat-Lonbarde for his fantastic “paper circuits” which are ideal for an electronics newbie like me.
Silence Blossoms are dead excited to be heading out on the road together for the first time, there’s been a long and unhappy pause in activity for us so we’re itching to get playing again. We’ll be starting off in Trondheim with a few days rehearsing, then following the first gig on the 25th of April we head off around Norway, Sweden and Denmark. If you haven’t heard the band yet you can check some of our Youtube clips or visit our myspace. We’re also planning to do some live recording during the tour so hopefully there will be some material for you to download soon. Apologies to all of you in the UK, we’ll be coming over to the island at some point in the future I’m sure. Here’s who the band are (fantastic guys, check them all out) and where you can see us in the coming months. Also……
*****Super Exclusive Teaser****
Here are a couple of incredibly exclusive teaser tracks for those of you who can’t wait or can’t make it to one of the gigs. They’re both super low-fi recording (mac microphone) of the first ever run through of each pieces (Alex couldn’t make the rehearsal so I had to play Casio Keyboard;-). We thought they had a certain rustic charm so we’re making them available for YOU.
SILENCE BLOSSOMS – Spring Tour 2011
Sam Andreae – electronics, woodwind Gus Loxbo – double bass, guitar, saw Hanna Olivegren Wessblad - voice Alexander Zethson – melodica, pump organ, piano
Monday 25th April – Antikveriet, Trondheim, NO
Wednesday 27th April – Cafe Mir, Oslo, NO
Thursday 28th April – Karlstad Church, Karlstad, SE
Friday 29th April – Cafe Teater, Vesterås, SE
Saturday 30th April – Linköping Church, Linköping, SE
Monday 2nd May – venue tbc, Stockholm
Wednesday 4th May – Skurups Folkhögskola, Skurup, SE
Thursday 5th May – Ribersborgs Kallbadhaus, Malmö, SE
Friday 6th May – Løve’s Bog og Vin Cafe, Århus, DK
Saturday 7th May – Venue tbc, Gothenburg, SE
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