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Jan Bang
In 2005 he launched, together with Erik Honoré, the internationally renowned Punkt Festival, where Bang's live sampling - his own musical instrument - works within the framework of overlapping concerts: one being the original; the other, the remix. The Punkt brand has already traveled abroad to the UK, Germany and has plans to visit the United States.
Bang's recent recorded work includes the acclaimed CDs Cartography and Jon Hassell's Last Night the Moon Came, both on ECM. Recent live performances and tours have included with Jon Hassell to Sidney Opera House as part of Eno's own festival and last year playing Carnegie Hall in NYC and Royce Hall, LA. In November 2008, as curator of "Scene Norway" during the opening of King's Place in London, BBC's Fiona Talkington invited Punkt for a three-day festival as part of the London Jazz Festival.
Bang was born in Denver and grew up in Kristiansand, nurtured by the legacy of his father's vast record collection, his mother's piano playing and the sounds of swallows in the family garden. The early meeting between Bang, Erik Honoré, and a range of music technology, awoke a desire to start a band and a thirst to develop something unique. The Tromsø electronic scene - and some musical collisions with other soon-to-be famous musicians such as Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Petter Molvær - set Bang on the road to his status as one of the most innovative and creative musicians working in Norway today.
Jan Bang's solo album, ...and poppies from Kandahar, was released in 2010 on David Sylvian's samadhisound label, and Bang will be touring the material later in the year, together with guitarist longtime collaborator, Eivind Aarset.
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Hu Vibrational: Timeless
by Geno Thackara
An Adam Rudolph recording is less a collection of musical pieces than of sound paintings. The elements he works with are musical ones--any instrument known to mankind might be used, and often even used to play notes--but traditions of form and melody tend to be tossed out the window from the start. The tones are treated as daubs of paint on a palette, splashed here and there whenever they will add something to whichever imaginary landscape he is evoking at ...
read moreArve Henriksen: Solidification
by John Kelman
Constellations and the Something of Discovery Music as a chosen profession may suggest occupying the minds of its makers far beyond the 9-to-5 hours of your average job, but for some it goes further still. Transcending mere preoccupation, trumpeter Arve Henriksen seems to eat, drink, sleep and dream music, 24/7, 365 days a year. I was sitting in my car recently, driving from Oslo to Gothenburg," Henriksen relates, and I just started to sing and sing and sing. And I ...
read moreJan Bang e il Questionario di Proust
by Paolo Peviani
Il tratto principale della mia musica Mi interessa lavorare su cose molto concrete come il ritmo, la tessitura, la melodia, l'armonia. Come dice una mia buona amica, la cantante norvegese Sidsel Endresen: se hai tempo, allora tutto il resto alla fine si risolverà. La qualità che desidero nei musicisti che suonano con me Mi piace suonare con musicisti che hanno orecchie attente, che si ascoltano davvero tra loro e nel cui modo di ...
read moreEivind Aarset & Jan Bang: Snow Catches on her Eyelashes
by John Eyles
Although they had been collaborating since the early 90s, the first recording on which the Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset and American-born, Norway-resident Jan Bang appeared together was Bang's Pop Killer (Virgin, 1998). In the years since, Aarset and Bang have collaborated on many more albums, but this is the first to credit them as a duo. Particular high spots in their collaborations have included Bang's album on David Sylvian's label ...and Poppies from Kandahar (Samishadsound, 2010), Aarset's Dream Logic (ECM, ...
read moreJan Bang: Narrative from the Subtropics
by Nenad Georgievski
Years ago, renowned film director Derek Jarman filmed a daring film called Blue where the viewers could only see a blue screen behind which the sounds from the scenes could be heard but not seen. This way, the viewers imagined the film based on the dialogues and the sound they heard, and placed their own images onto the blue screen. In a similar manner, renowned producer Jan Bang makes music with a strong cinematic flair that functions as a soundtrack ...
read morePunkt Festival 2013
by John Kelman
Punkt FestivalKick Kristiansand, Norway September 6-8, 2013 Punkt is back. Three simple words with greater significance. While the annual festival, which has made its name on the strength of two additional words--Live Remix--had an eighth edition in 2012 that, on paper, should have been nothing short of spectacular, it was ultimately not just disappointing but, for longtime attendees, something that actually engendered real anger. The reasons were two-fold: first, invited festival curator Brian Eno--a ...
read moreJan Bang: Narrative From The Subtropics
by Henning Bolte
For Norwegian electronic musician Jan Bang, the studio is no longer a perfectly isolated space to assemble and produce fictitious beautiful sounds--a boundary he has long since transcended. He not only brought studio equipment and techniques to the performing stage but he also started using them as tools in live improvisation. Together with fellow musician and companion Erik Honoré he established the Punkt-praxis of immediate live remix of musical performances by another (group of) musician(s). His approach has increased the ...
read moreAnnouncing the Winners of the "Jan Bang - ...And Poppies from Kandahar" Giveaway
Source:
All About Jazz
Enter the "Jan Bang - ...And Poppies from Kandahar" Giveaway
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz members are invited to enter the Samadhisound Jan Bang--...and poppies from Kandahar giveaway contest starting today. We'll select FIVE winners at the conclusion of the contest on August 4th. Click here to enter the contest
(Following Jan Bang at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.)
Good luck! Your Friends at Samadhisound
About Jan Bang and ...and poppies from Kandahar The musical spheres Jan Bang works in revolve around such luminaries as Jon Hassell, ...
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Live Sampler Jan Bang Interviewed at AAJ...And More!
Source:
All About Jazz
When it comes to organically integrating modern technology into music, few countries are innovating to the degree of Norway, and at the epicenter of that country's forward-thinking approach to melding improvisation with jazz and Norwegian traditionalism--not to mention contemporary classicism, pop, ambient and more; truly any and all musical markers--is producer/remixer Jan Bang, who has just released his first album as a leader, ....and poppies from Kandahar (SamadhiSound, 2010).
Bang, from his home base in Kristiansand at the south tip ...
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- John Kelman, AllAboutJazz.com
"...Another very special album from the Samadhi Sound stable"
-
Boomkat.com
"...One of the more impressive albums I have heard in a long time. "It proves
that there are always new roads to travel, that there is still a lot of new music
to explore"
- Vancooten.com
"...A refined, close to chill-out sound which has more of an urban feel than
fellow Norwegian Jan Garbarek's more spacey and forlorn landscapes"
-
Wall Street Journal
"...Jan Bang interweaving live instrumentals, studio processing, field
recordings and other effluvia into dreamy, off-kilter soundscapes--
dreamscapes might be a better term--that carry the whiff of the exotic"
- Blogspot.com
"...Det är de små beståndsdelarna som används till stor effekt för att få fram
skönheten"
- Dagensskiva.com
"...Et de vakreste og ikke minst atmosfærefulle musikalske landskapene på
svært lang tid"
- Tor Hammerø, Nettavisen
"...På subtilt vis bryter Bang med forventningene han bygger opp, og gir igjen
for oppmerksom lytting"
- Dagsavisen
"...Suggestivt till max med en minimum av toner
Photos
Music
Serpentine
From: TimelessBy Jan Bang
Passport Control
From: ...and poppies from KandaharBy Jan Bang