“image and sounds form an ongoing tour!” – see you out there!

New studio recording out soon on Rune Grammofon,
meanwhile… Enjoy some live footage from tokyo.

Thanx to all involved!!!

SWEDISH AZZ will be becak soon with more swedish azz jazz in a village close to you…..”

The EX & Brass Unbound— SPECIAL PROJECT!!!!

Formed in 1979, The Ex has developed over the years into a melting-pot of diverse musical styles: noise, rock, jazz, improvisation, and ethnic musics have been interweaved under one unique umbrella: “Ex-music”. Discordant, highly rhythmic guitars, the rolling, almost African drumming style, and the intense delivery of the often ironic lyrics give the music of The Ex its special character.

So far, in almost 30 years, The Ex has played 1371 concerts all over Europe, North America and Africa, and released over 20 albums. Never pigeon-holed into one of pop music’s corny corners, The Ex is continuously in development, and always open for new ideas and collaborations with people of all kinds, people whose spirit inspires and appeals to the group. The main principle remains; to make music with heart and soul, out of reach of commercial trends or expectations. The consequent independent approach of the group and the manner in which they organize their concerts and release and distribute their records themselves, has set a significant example for the alternative music circuit.

It’s 2010 now, and they’re still going strong, and forward, in every possible direction.

Current lineup…

THE EX

TERRIE HESSELS – guitar, baritone guitar
ARNOLD DE BOER – vocals, guitar, sampler
ANDY MOOR – guitar, baritone guitar
KATHERINA BORNEFELD – drums, vocals

+

BRASS UNBOUND

MATS GUSTAFSSON – Baritone and slide sax

KEN VANDERMARK – clarinet, tenor and baritone sax

WOLTER WIERBOS – trombone

ROY PACI – trumpet, poetry

review after tour in UK… says it all:

John Robb , February 15th, 2010

30 years since they first formed, John Robb is thrilled to see The Ex keeping the visionary spirit alive

There is only one rule – there are no rules.

Netherlands group The Ex are the last band standing. They arrived three decades ago, a time when standard rock was abolished and new methods of communication were established.

Since then they have been a restless band incorporating a whole gamut of musical styles into an aural adventure that makes most others look lazy and pointless.

Like a clanking, mechanical Dutch rhythm machine they have somehow managed to combine strands of music as diverse as Ethiopiques, Burundi, Gnawa, dubstep, post punk, blues, free jazz and folk into their innovative whole. And that’s the cool thing about The Ex, no matter how far they wander from their base they still manage to make the whole caboodle of sound as direct, focussed and punk rock as when they started.

The band have their roots in the vibrant late 70s anarchist squat culture of Amsterdam. They grew out of the ideas thrown into the air by Crass – that direct political anger fused with inventive avant garde take on punk’s template – and took them in their own idiosyncratic direction.

They shared Crass’ intelligence and collective spirit and the idea that punk rock could be so much more than an excuse to get pissed. The UK Death To Trad Rock bands found a common ground with The Ex when they toured Holland in the early 80s. My band the Membranes bonded with them and the Ex’s squat was the port of call on endless European tours. They were the epicentre of a thriving scene then and their musical adventure was already unfurling in a fascinating direction of unapologetic records and fierce, idealistic politics.

Then and now an Ex show is like no other. There are no stars, no concessions to boorish rock n roll stupidity. This is a joyous affair, a stage crammed with equal partners. There are the twin guitars of Andy (formally of the fantastic Dog Face Hermans) and Terrie – scratching, scraping hypnotic riffing on battered Telecasters and weird half bass/half guitar combinations that build and build into the amazing song climaxes.

There’s the brass section that is culled from some of the world’s finest free jazz musicians- that cut loose with moments that are sheer Sun Ra or Coltrane or even the legendary police brass band that plays on all the Ethiopiques records from the early 70s. New singer Arnold de Boer has nobly filled the gap left by recently departed Jos with the right combination of intensity of modesty that marks the band out.

And perhaps the key part is the delightful Kat on drums – she is the best drummer in the world. Still. I’ve seen The Ex so many times in the last 30 years and she has been unfailingly brilliant. There is no dull 4/4 here, for Kat is a rhythm machine. The combination of cowbells and woodblocks with her rolling, multi rhythmic approach is amazing, no song ever gets bogged down in the obvious but instead is unfailingly danceable; yet another key to The Ex.

The Ex have managed to keep moving through the decades with this spirit. Their restless hunger for music has seen them play all over the world, including several trip to Ethiopia. This outward-looking international approach has fused their approach to making music.

An Ex show is a shared experience, they take the audience on a musical adventure to places no one has been before. They are the most interesting musical unit in the world today- several other long standing post punk bands get endless accolades for their sense of exploration but all of them bar The Ex just repeat the same tricks over and over to the same applause. Go and see the Ex and you will hear rhythms you have never heard before, you will find yourself dancing to some free jazz wildness in 13/8 time; you will find yourself grinning to a piece of white noise, you will shut your eyes and get lost in the brass skronk.

All this should not really be happening – after all that kind of music is normally in the hands of the snobs, but The Ex are playful and make the tough musical choices, the breathtaking frontier music, the direct political anger into a sweaty seething party, an uplifting, joyful celebration.

No-one else can do this.

You know what really makes me feel great this morning? This Ex tour sold out fast. After years of being a best kept cult secret they have suddenly started to become popular. Right out of the blue, after 30 years, after the gradual strangulation of creative culture by the corporations and the cynicism of the music industry they have brilliantly proved that playing music with this sense of wild-eyed fun and radical political edge and this adherence to all that was good and great about the positive politic of the punk and post punk period can actually fucking work.

Today the world is smiling.

The good people are winning.

Contact…

The Ex
P.O. Box 635
1000 AP Amsterdam
Netherlands

ex@theex.nl
mailorder@theex.nl

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55867717@N00/sets/72157623272999801/show/

Swedish Azz
New new 11 ”

The Tour poster

And to see the Tour list, Click here

Fire!

Mats Gustafsson – saxophones, Fender Rhodes and live electronics
Johan Berthling – bass, guitar, organ
Andreas Werliin – drums and percussion.

New ensemble with members from The Thing, Tape, Wildbirds and Peacedrums,
creating a mix of slow down – speeded up, distorted versions of contemporary experimental music.
With inspiration from mining, large lorry engines, electro acoustic music from Sweden and a large variety of creative garage rock and free jazz, FIRE! is building up a new language and models for how improvised music can be done.

“…det är som Ramones, fast utan sång!!!” Per Svensson, 2010

“… eller snarare som the Doors, fast tvärtom!” Per Svensson, 2010

Click the image to download a high rez image

First release on rune grammofon, LP and CD, in 2009:

RLP 3091 – Fire!: You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago

http://www.myspace.com/earthwindand

http://www.runegrammofon.com

Photos:
Johan Döden Dahlroth

Hypnotic and psychedelic different sounding ”jazz” (Rune press)

Out of the seemingly inexhaustible treasure chest that is the Scandinavian experimental scene comes this latest Swedish supergroup, formed of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, member of many a formation, of which the best known is perhaps The Thing, bassist Johan Berthling, co-founder of Häpna and member of Tape, Animes and Sten Sandell Trio, and Andreas Werliin, the drumming half of Wildbirds & Peacedrums amongst other things. Having landed on Rune Grammofon with their first missive, this three-headed entity, who operate under a banner which, thanks to a prominent element of punctuation, unmistakably suggests an element of urgency, have such widespread backgrounds that the sum of their collaborative effort was bound to surpass much of their individual outputs.
You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago is a pretty dense and vibrant affair, which rakes influences way beyond the confines of jazz, pulling in elements of seventies psychedelic rock and experimental Kosmische/Krautrock, amongst other things, into these four radically different tracks, two of which clock around the fifteen mark, bookended by two much shorter pieces. Propelled by a pretty fluid and volatile rhythmic section, which is as much at ease with introspective moments as it is with incendiary passages, these songs drift from the primal sax effusions of If I Took Your Hand to the hypnotic groove of the last segment of But Sometimes I Am or from the rambling and feverish cadence of the first half of that same piece to the more sophisticated layering of Can You Hold For A Minute? and the surprisingly light tribal flow of the title track.
The two centre pieces share a particular format which has the trio work a meandrous path through restrained musical forms before building up to a rhythm which eventually transforms the scope of these pieces altogether. The way they achieve this is very specific to each track though. Of the two, But Sometimes I Am is the one that goes through the most profound changes, rising from an opening sequence cast around a pretty minimal bass-drum pattern and the distant hum of processed distortion in the back, which get progressively ripped apart by blazing gusts of sax. Taking advantage of a lull in the proceedings, Mariam Wallentin, the other half of Wildbirds & Peacedrums, hangs a few vocal arabesques over a monolithic Hammond drone, but soon the pace increases radically, throwing the piece into a much more hypnotic groove where the rhythmic section, like a runaway train, crashes through distorted guitars and keyboards until it eventually burns out a few minutes down the line.
Can I Hold You For A Minute? on the other hand is a more linear construction which the trio continuously refine, bringing in elements in much more subtle fashion. There is, here too, a clear progression, but this is done through sophisticated sonic layering, which, over the first eight minutes, gives the track growing density. Over the last few minutes, it appears to be ceased by rampant decay as the sounds decompose one by one until there’s nothing left but a cluster of distortions.
On these two pieces, Gustafsson’s sax is often ubiquitous by its absence, but the direction chosen by band doesn’t necessarily justifies its presence, leaving the man free to contribute a much wider palette. As an entity, Fire! work extremely well. Fearlessly pushing into uncharted territories, combining elements which are usually kept well apart into a greatly contrasted and eclectic sonic canvas, the trio have created with this first album a particularly intense and daring soundtrack which can only captivate more with time.

www.themilkfactory.co.uk

“Fire!” is Mats Gustafsson on saxophones and Fender Rhodes, Johan Berthling on bass, electric guitar and Hammond organ, and Andreas Werliin on drums. The first piece is built around a repetitive bass vamp, a solid anchor point for the drums to go haywire and Gustafsson to have a no-holds-barred sax solo, screaming and wailing as if his life depended on it, yet ending all smooth and gently. The second piece, “But Sometimes I am”, starts with a slow acoustic bass figure around which Werliin adds percussive depth on his cymbals. After some four minutes the sax joins with some gut-wrenching multiphonic sound, full of distress and sadness, a sound which is so unmistakably identifiable as Gustafsson, so human and authentic that it’s really frightening, and – suprise – his sound merges into some high-toned singing by Mariam Wallentin, on a true psychedelic backdrop reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”, but then the electronics set in as the speed increases, moving to an inevitable paroxysm we know from the early Floyd. Absolutely mesmerizing. “Can I Hold You For A Minute”, starts with a rock-ish mid-tempo beat, with bass and drums laying a repetitive pattern for the electric guitar and keyboards to build a hypnotic wall of sound, through which Gustafsson’s piercing sax comes tearing through, as if his soul was condemned, for ever.

The last track starts light-footed, with some handclapping accompanying a repetitive sax over an odd 2/4 rhythm, of which the tempo increases, a little too joyful and too much of a contrast with the carefully built up atmosphere of the previous tracks.

This is not fusion. It is not even progressive jazz rock à la Soft Machine. It’s the endless psychedelic and epic – as yet unpolished – sound mastership of the early Pink Floyd in a more modern form with the magnificent voice of Gustafsson to add emotional power.

http://freejazz-stef.blogspot.com

Fire! är en presumtiv supergrupp, om än i klart mindre skala än, säg, Cream. Vad som avgör är förväntningarna man kan ha på just den här konstellationen. Saxofonisten Mats Gustavsson känner många till; han är redan ett världsnamn inom improvisationsmusiken. Basisten Johan Berthling har hörts med bland andra Tape och Sten Sandells trio. Och så trummisen Andreas Werliin, som häromåret slog igenom med kritikerrosade Lovebirds & Peacedrums. Det blir inte nödvändigtvis bra. Många band har sett bättre ut på papperet än de låtit i verkligheten. Men Fire! håller. De spelar med kropp och själ. En övertygelse som oavkortat strömmar genom musiken. Det rock och jazz och impro i ett. Kraftfulla, långsträckta stycken som avtvingar mig en reaktion och får mig att vilja gå mot strömmen. Werliin gör mycket. Hans tunga spel över pukorna är en viktig del i Lovebirds & Peacedrums och har samma bärande effekt här. Något helt annat än Cream.
Johannes Cornell

RIIS AND THE SMOOTH ONES!!!

new group of improvised noises and silences… all from Österlen…

“we listen to the wind…” ( there is not much other to listen to anyway in Österlen…)

Per Svensson, Jakob Riis and Mats Gustafsson

first concert will be  on 23rd of oct at the Copenhagen Improv Festival.

watch the TOUR site for more info.

two reviews of The Thing´s BAG IT! in spanish….

we think they are positive…

http://www.elintruso.com/article.php?id=1688

http://www.tomajazz.com/bun/2009/09/thing-covers-top-10-continuacion.html

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LIVE AT YARDBIRD SUITE,  EDMONTON, may 2nd 2009
17,49 min
IMPROVISATION incl excerpts from Stephanie McDee´s “Call the Police”
unreleased