Feels a little weird to be announcing our ‘spring’ season whilst its snowing outside, but hopefully by the time February comes around there’ll be birds and daffodils and everything! And we’ll be kicking off our short but sweet Spring season with some really exciting gigs… As well as Manchester bands Johnny Hunter Quartet, Badger the Hermit and A Greater Horror, we’ll be welcoming saxophonist Pete Lyons over from Sheffield and the much talked about Shatner’s Bassoon from the always innovative Leeds scene.
Also really exciting is is a series of one-off “project” commissions that will be performed as the first set on some nights. This is something that we’re introducing for the first time this season with projects led by Efpi co-founders Sam Andreae and Anton Hunter, and we’re all pretty eager to see what will happen with these first two projects and beyond! The premise is that we ask different musicians/composers to be in charge of putting together a set of music in collaboration with some/all of the featured act, with the likely possibility of involving local musicians too. By the nature of these commissions (sometimes the musicians will have never met before the night itself, and have very little rehearsal time) the results will be spontaneous and often somewhat a work in progress, which we think will be fascinating for audiences to be a part of. Each featured artist will have to develop a workable composition or concept for this situation, and we’re really excited about hearing the results!
Dates are as follows:
5th February – Pete Lyons LX:V Quintet + Johnny Hunter Quartet
19th February – Shatner’s Bassoon + Sam Andreae project
5th March – Badger the Hermit + Anton Hunter project
19th March – A Greater Horror + Sam Andreae (solo)
Full details and descriptions of all bands over on the Freedom Principle page, along with all the info for timings, location etc. As ever, all of this will cost you £3 to enjoy – remember that 100% of that money goes directly to the musicians, in many cases just to pay for their travel rather than as any sort of fee. Thanks in anticipation for your continued support, we wouldn’t be able to keep doing this without people like YOU coming along to Sandbar.
Happy new year! For the first podcast of 2013, Ben assembled a crack team of musicians from amongst the Efpi family and friends in a barn in the middle of the Peak District to discuss both the musical year that was 2012 and the exciting things that are coming up in 2013… Our expert panel drawn from all over Europe consists of (in alphabetical order to avoid any arguments!) Sam Andreae, Moss Freed, Anton Hunter, Johnny Hunter, David Meier, Finlay Panter and Alice Zawadzki – all of those names above are hyperlinks which will take you to their own websites, where you can find out more information about the musicians themselves and some of the projects they discuss in the podcast.
More information on the other bands and musicians we talked about can be found via the links below – there’s some that aren’t in the list below but they’re either not online (according to google at least) or can be found on the individual musician’s website as linked to above.
Massive thanks to everyone involved for being informative and entertaining, hope you enjoy listening and find some new things to listen to in the coming year!
Here is the second in our new series of music podcasts where this month I’ll be presenting a selection of music from Trondheim, the city which I’ve been living in the last year and a half. Located in middle Norway it’s a bit of a mystical jazz/improv/experimental haven, with many great musicians crammed into a small city.
A few Trondheim facts worth special mention; the jazz super-group (there’s a contradiction) Atomic were formed here; there are more experimental tuba players per capita than anywhere else in the world; rain, snow and “dark” are the main three weather types; and it has an astonishingly vibrant music scene (especially for such a small city).
Here are details of the bands and artists (in order) presented on the show, happy listening!:
Here is the first in our brand new podcast series, this month curated by Ben Cottrell. Here he chats with fellow Efpi co-founder Sam Andreae about Silence Blossoms, a great band that Sam formed in Sweden two years ago and who are preparing to play their first ever UK gigs next month to mark the release of a collection of live recordings from around Sweden (released November 5th on Efpi Records, in collaboration with the Ljup label in Sweden).
In the podcast you’ll hear music that you won’t be able to hear online anywhere else, as the tracks played will only be available on old-school audio cassette… Sam also talks about the formation of the band and the compositional process, previews Silence Blossoms’ upcoming UK gigs (details below) as well as giving an idea of what to expect from future podcast editions – this whole thing was his idea!
If you like what you hear, you can catch Silence Blossoms and purchase the live collection in concert (alongside the awesome Alice Zawadzki for both dates) in the UK in November:
18th November – The Forge, Camden (London Jazz Festival) more info/tickets here
20th November – Sandbar, Manchester (Freedom Principle) more info/tickets here
Reprising the programme from an Efpi-presented gig at The Forge in Camden during the London Jazz Festival, tonight sees two bands that both draw heavily from stories and poems in their performances – literature and music combine to intensely powerful effect.
Freedom Principle favourite Alice Zawadzki returns with her songs of life, love and people, told through languages deeply rooted in jazz, folk, free improvisation and more. As the always excellent LondonJazz blog’s Sebastien Scotney described a recent gig – “Olivier Messiaen meets Jimmy McGriff. Hell yes. Chill-out lounge to dance floor. Walk this way…”. Also appearing are Stockholm-based Silence Blossoms, on their first set of UK gigs and launching a collection of live recordings on Efpi Records taken from recent tours of Scandinavia. They take contemporary poetry and mix it with their own blend of free improvisation and electronic-twinged folk to create something of immense beauty and power.
Its that time of year again – back to school, heating is going back on and the Christmas biscuits are in the shops… But never fear because to ease the mourning for the loss of summer we have a ridiculously exciting Freedom Principle Autumn season for you! For the first time, every gig is a double bill so there’ll be twice the music – but all for the same price of £3. Don’t forget that 100% of that £3 goes straight to the musicians, so please continue to support them by coming along to Sandbar for great music and great beer!
Perhaps the headline-grabbing gig is the Mercury Prize nominated and Gilles Peterson and Jez Nelson championed Roller Trio, appearing on 6th November alongside a new electric project from Beats & Pieces saxophonist Ben Watte, but we’re equally excited about a meeting of Mancunian guitar heroes Mike Walker and Stuart McCallum on 16th October and a journey into the unknown on 2nd October with improvised sets from vibraphonist Corey Mwamba‘s trio with Dave Kane and Joshua Blackmore, and Trio VD and Acoustic Ladyland’s Chris Sharkey. The programme is completed by gigs from French-born guitarist Hugo Corbin and his trio alongside The Horizon Experiment, a brand new band led by drummer and multi-instrumentalist Jim Molyneux, on 25th September; a return for Freedom Principle favourite Alice Zawadzki alongside Stockholm-based Silence Blossoms (led by Efpi’s Sam Andreae) on their first set of UK gigs on 20th November; and a Christmas extravaganza on 4th December from Freedom Principle’s very own Anton Hunter and his trio alongside the Madwort Sax Quartet from London, formed by Tom Ward and featuring Led Bib’s Chris Williams.
Full line up below along with some audio and visual delights to whet your appetite:
Here’s a little vid from one of our recent gigs in Helsinki, seems the summer arrived when it should in Finland at least…..
We were there last month recording for our new album planned for release later in the year, the sessions were great fun and we put down a lot of tracks. Big thanks to David and Eero, and also Joonas, our fantastic recording engineer. Here’s a special little something for you guys too ;-)
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!
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