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Rune Grammofon
Spunk 'Still Eating Ginger Bread For Breakfast, The 20th Anniversary Concert' CD
£12.49
vRune Grammofon
Spunk 'Still Eating Ginger Bread For Breakfast, The 20th Anniversary Concert' CD
£12.49
Visit product page →"Last time I heard SPUNK was phenomenal! They are among the most exciting improvising groups in the world right now". Fred Frith
Formed in 1995, SPUNK comprises four of Norway's most innovative musicians: Kristin Andersen - trumpet and recorders Hild Sofie Tafjord - french horn, toys, live processing and sampling Maja S. K. Ratkje - voice, theremin, oscillators, live preocessing and sampling Lene Grenager - cello.
Free collective improvising is one of the most demanding ways of making music: the pitfalls are many - self-absorption, incoherence, certain standardized "gestures" of free jazz, lack of dynamics, humourlessness - but SPUNK are alert to the dangers. Bold, sometimes witty, always alert, they make engaging music, and keep the sound of surprise alive.
They have no fear of bringing the music to the brink of anarchy - they are interested in extremes as well as subtleties - but their instincts as composers-in-action also serve them well. Most of all, perhaps, SPUNK convince by the force of their own convictions. As Maja Ratkje says: "Music has to be strong. It deals with communication in an extremely direct fashion, within its own language.
This is something that makes it vulnerable, but also, potentially, a bearer of great poetic power". For their 20th anniversary concert in December 2015 they moved from the exotic concert sites of previous years to Oslo's Nasjonal Jazzscene, home of the most interesting local and international jazz and impro concerts in the capital.
Still Eating Ginger Bread For Breakfast is a recording of that concert - divided into two sets - as on the evening. It is also SPUNK's ninth album since their 1999 debut Det Eneste Jeg Vet Er At Det Ikke Er En Støvsuger, all on Rune Grammofon. One would think that the Ginger Bread title would come from the same Pippi Longstocking universe that gave name to the group as well as their early albums, but not so.
According to Maja it simply came to them as an absurd association. In tune with much of their music making, one would be tempted to add. -
Sold outVisit product page →Kristin Andersen: trumpet and flutes Lene Grenager: cello Maja Ratkje: voice, violin, harmonica, accordion, theremin and various
Hild Sofie Tafjord: french horn and various. At one minute past eight in the evening of the twentieth of January, 2001, the Norwegian quartet SPUNK began playing a drone in the key of B, inaugurating a project that would weave into their musical lives for the foreseeable future.
Eleven years, eleven months and eleven minutes later, the same foursome struck up a G, embarking on the final leg of a journey that had taken them through the twelve notes of the equal tempered scale ' one tone per year.
The twelve concerts took place at a variety of unusual locations around Oslo, including the immense, almost pitch-black interior of the Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum, with its twenty-second reverberation time; the Nobel Institute; a cabin on a remote island in the Oslo fjord; in a tent on top of the slanting roof of the newly built Opera House; the Physics Department of Oslo University; a vibrant high street shopping mall called Oslo City; and a private domestic living room.
Das Wohltemperierte Spunks thrilling, texturally complex improvisations can be appreciated in their own right without any knowledge of the underpinning structure or concept. And yet the underlying numerology places the piece in a long line of consciously mathematical music, from the Bach keyboard corpus from which it takes its name, to Anton Webern's String Quartet opus 28 (1938), which closes a circle by spelling out B-A-C-H in the first four notes of its twelve-tone row. SPUNK's own opus uses the same order of tones as the Webern quartet.
Tracklisting:
CD 1:
1. 20.01.2001 At 20:01 Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum (Bb)
2. 20.02.2002 At 20:02 A Basement At Seilduksgata 25k (A)CD 2:
1. 20.03.2003 At 20:03 Oslo City Shopping Centre (C)
2. 20.04.2004 At 20:04 The Norwegian Nobel Institute (H)CD 3:
1. 20.05.2005 At 20:05 St. Edmund's Church (D#)
2. 20.06.2006 At 20:06 A Cabin At Nakholmen Island (E)CD 4:
1. 20.07.2007 At 20:07 Nydalen, By The Akerselva River (C#)
2. 20.08.2008 At 20:08 The Roof Of The Norwegian National Opera & Ballet (D)CD 5:
1. 20.09.2009 At 20:09 Hønse-Lovisa's House (Gb)
2. 20.10.2010 At 20:10 An Apartment At Brugata 3A (F)CD 6:
1. 20.11.2011 At 20:11 Gamle Aker Church (Ab)
2. 20.12.2012 At 20:12 University Of Oslo, The Physics Building (G) -
Central artists from Norway's flowering electronica and noise scene join forces to remix female chamber anarchist quartet SPUNK, the source being the group's debut album from 1999, "Det eneste jeg vet er at det ikke er en støvsuger" (RCD 2010).Visit product page →
Contributions from Martin Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), Kim Hiorthøy, Upper Rooms, Phonophani, Svalastog, Kristin Andersen (SPUNK), (X, Y, Z), Andreas Meland (Düplo), Jørgen Træen, Sun Demon, Risto Holopainen, Lasse Marhaug (Jazzkammer) and Andreas Mjøs (Jaga Jazzist, Rotoscope).
Tracklisting:
1. Det Eneste Jeg Vet Er At Det Var Et Horn Engang
2. Akershus Pubertet
3. Thing That Hurt
4. Fjernfjernkontrollkontroll
5. Feil Remix
6. Truly Falling Slowly
7. Tapeunderlaget På Ball
8. Buljong
9. Trav'lin'light
10. Akershus (Demon Dub)
11. Aker Brygge
12. Septemberunderlaget 2
13. Sticky Tapedeck -
Free collective improvising is one of the most demanding ways of making music: the pitfalls are many ' self-absorption, incoherence, certain standardized gestures of free jazz, lack of dynamics, humourlessness ' but Spunk are alert to the dangers.Visit product page →
Bold, sometimes witty, always alert, they make engaging music, and keep the sound of surprise alive.
They have no fear of bringing the music to the brink of anarchy - they are interested in extremes as well as subtleties - but their instincts as composers-in-action also serve them well. Most of all, perhaps, Spunk convince by the force of their own convictions.
As Maja Ratkje says:
Music has to be strong. It deals with communication in an extremely direct fashion, within its own language. This is something that makes it vulnerable, but also, potentially, a bearer of great poetic power.
Tracklisting:
1. Tremble
2. The Lake
3. Bipolarity
4. Quadralogue
5. Antisolar Point
6. Mosegrodd
7. Ankomst
8. Ute
9. Eaten
