Listen...and tell me what it was

Gitarist Ivar Grydeland, bassist Tonny Kluften og trommeslager Ingar Zach utgjør kjernen i avantgarde/friimprovisasjonsprosjektet No Spaghetti Edition. (Navnet speiler musikernes credo, at musikk må være friskere enn gammel spaghetti.) Trioen henter inn musikere til sine ulike prosjekter, og på denne ferske debutplata, lansert i forbindelse med NSEs Kongsberg-konsert, opptrer Maja S. Ratkje, Ingebrigt H. Flaten, Frode Haltli, Rolf Erik Nystrøm, Håkon Kornstad, Paal Nilssen-Love og Øyvind Torvund samt engelske Pat Thomas og tyske Axel Dörner. Jazz, samtidsmusikk og electronica, altså, og når disse kreative sjeler møtes i ulike konstellasjoner for å lage spontanmusikk, oppstår audielle collager og skulpturer der energien dirrer og lyser i de forskjelligste frekvenser og farger, hinsides tradisjonell melodikk og rytmikk. Kompromissløst krever musikken sin lytters fulle oppmerksomhet, og selv da er det opp til den enkelte hva han/hun får tilbake, ut over lyd i tilsynelatende kaos- med vekt på tilsynelatende . Utfordrende og befriende i ei tid der markedstilpasset musikk dominerer i alle kanaler.

Terje Mosnes

«For dette er musikk som både tåler og fortjener å bli hørt mange ganger. OK, det er sært, skjevt og til tider direkte lytteruvennlig, men det er disse kvalitetene som gjør at musikken tåler gjenhør.(...) Noe av det jeg liker aller best, er den fine dynamikken musikerne får frem. I motsetning til en god del annen friimprovisert musikk blir det lite vegg-til-vegg improvisasjon her, og desto mer lydhørhet musikerne imellom.

Eivind Buene

«Listeners interested in a so-far-unheralded group of players and a raucous good time program of improvisation should investigate this session. Most of the musicians are unjustly unknown at present, but with luck, many folks will soon know about these fjord freedom sounds

«Listen...and tell me what it was (SOFA 506) by the twelve piece ensemble No Spaghetti Edition is a sort of hyper-Sofa experience that has both Nilseen-Love and Zach on drums (and you can tell them apart!), Grydeland on guitar, Pat Thomas on piano and a host of top Norwegian improvisers. The orchestra is a different beast to other improvisation orchestras and achieves a genuinely unified ensemble sound. Rolf Erik Nystrom and Hakon Kornstad’s saxophones only occasionally rise to the surface of a music that is characterised by flowing pointalistic splashes of colour from accordion, female voice and two electric guitars. Surreal recorded extracts appear and the CD is an impressive calling card for the collective vitality of the Norwegian scene.»

Philip Clark

«Who would have thought that Scandinavia would become such a hotbed for free improvisation? Over the last few years, reed player Mats Gustafsson has been instrumental in putting a spotlight on the Swedish scene (which has been going strong, if a bit under-documented for several decades.) Now the Norwegians are starting to get their due. No Spaghetti Edition is a collective group with a revolving ensemble of musicians. This recording captures a tentet of Norwegians, joined by British keyboard and electronics player Pat Thomas and German trumpeter Axel Dörner. On paper, the group breaks down to a sort of double sextet, but the playing here is more akin to Gunter Christman’s Vario projects or the King Ubu Orchestra with dashes of the aggressiveness of early FMP onslaughts. The collective developments move from dense, layered assaults to open spaciousness. These rough-scrabble spontaneous interactions are full of finely detailed textures, heavy doses of extended techniques and swirling skeins of electronic samples, glitches, and skirling sine waves. The strategy is starting to gain a certain cachet in the free improv scene, but the group has put their own spin on things that make these improvisations stand out. The quirky stamp of Frode Haltli’s free-folk accordion and Maja Ratkje’s fractured wordless vocals make an immediate impression. A close listen continues to reveal a group of players who traverse a tension-filled balance between caterwauling, propulsive bluster and shifting free refractions with daring invention. Each of the players weaves their complex lines into collective orchestrations of beguiling intensity and focus. Sometimes it is the thundering percussion of Zach and Nilssen-Love that drive things, other times it is Thomas’ cascading piano, and yet other times it is the chattering swell of pointillistic filigree. Laptop computers are becoming almost as common place as saxophones for certain practitioners of free improvisation. No Spaghetti Edition proves that the two can have a healthy coexistence and chart commanding, fresh ground in the process.»

Michael Rosenstein