"When Christian Wallumrød and I started the recording of "Merriwinkle" in 2002, we had never played together before. We had listened to each other's music for many years - and had talked a lot about music in general - so we were pretty well updated on each other's musical orientation. We also knew that we both wanted to work with free improvisation.
For the past 15 years I have worked with improvisation in many forms. It has been an intergral part of my last 5 releases: as a basis for developing new material - as an equal element paired with written material - and as a means for discovering and developing new aspects of the voice. So "Merriwinkle" is a continuation and a "coming together" of many roads I've been down musically.
Although "Merriwinkle" is completely improvised (i.e. : you'll never hear these exact songs again!) - and is void of any lyrics (comprehensible ones, anyway!) - I'm always looking for the clear structure and the "song" within.
Both Christian and I are very concerned about the pure "sound" -aspect of our music, and in order to optimize this, we chose to start out in an analogue studio ("Athletic Sound" in Norway). The excellent recording situation there, (thanks to studio-owner and engineer Kai Andersen), also helped define how the music developed.
In January 2002 we had our first 2-day session - starting from zero and recording everything. In the end we threw out a lot of stuff. Among other things, we tried improvising around some of my poems, but they became a "filter", adding unwanted literary content and moods to the music. Also, the actual shape of the lyrics steered the music towards fixed, and all too familiar, forms. So I chose to work only with my abstract vocal sounds and phonemes - giving me much greater vocal freedom. Five of the pieces on "Merriwinkle" are from this first session: "Oldenwold", "Soleside", "Merrivein", "Wobber" and "Tunk" - all in their original shape and length.
In between our collaboration on my commission for Bergen Jazz Festival (May 2002) and extensive touring with the new line-up for my "Undertow" project in 02 and 03 (Christian on keys and Jan Bang on electronics) - we did a lot of rehearsing as a duo, played a couple of duo-concerts - and did two more 2-day studio-sessions. For the final session we invited along "Deathprod" Helge Sten as co-musician - working on the same principle of no pre-defined areas or other "plans" - and recorded everything. Again, many stretches were thrown out - and although there were several good parts in some of these, we decided against editing together these "lucid" moments - and instead chose the songs which had "found" their complete form. So - on "Merriwinkle" - there are no added effects - no overdubs - and only one edit (a cross-fade between "Bathos" and "Ectrik"). What we played is what you hear!
Helge Sten also mixed and mastered the record."
Sidsel Endresen March 2004
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Jazzlander |
| About the author: |
| Born in the heart of Jazzland at an early age, the Jazzlander found words within music and music within words. Raised by his parents in a small village, they eventually would lower him in a big city. It was there that his unique gifts were recognised, and he was imprisoned within the confines of the Jazzland website. It is here that he unleashes his views of music, and calls on those with the ability to hear to listen.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 September 2007 )
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