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Martin Kuchen

Martin Küchen was born 1966 in Eskilstuna, Sweden.

He wanted to take lessons on drums, but his parents made him "choose" the flute instead, which became his main instrument from the age of nine until he stopped when he was twenty.

When he was thirteen he started to sing in a rock band. That group ended after some years, but he never have stopped singing.

From 1985 to 1987 he attended the Music school of Skurup, Sweden. It was a very jazzorientated education, but when he persuaded a bass and drums and piano to join him playing a standard on his tenor saxophone (which he started playing when he was fifteen), but in an Ayleruesqe way, they laughed him to pieces. That was the years of "Spyro Gyra" and fancy keyboards.

From 1988�"1993 busking in the streets and subways in Sweden and in Europe.

In the year 1992 he consciously met "free improvised music" for the first time, the years after inspired by groups like GUSH, Lokomotiv Konkret and Iskra.

1995 �"1997 worked as a klezmer inspired Cirque Noveau musician, toured in Scandinavia and in Europe.

In 1995 he also visted Guinea, West Africa, for a three weeks' dancecourse, but ended up playing with the Alphones Suomas band up in the mine districts of Guinea.

From the 2000 onward he has toured and performed in Scandinavia and in Europe with figures like Phil Minton, Sirone, Mark Sanders, Burkhard Beins, Andrea Neumann, Tony Wren, Cloudchamber, Tony Bevan, Luc Houtkamp, and Joe Williamson.

In 2003 he wrote and performed the music in the theatre act "Woyzeckmaskinen" (The Woyzeckmachine) performed by Teatermaskinen, a free theatre group, based in Riddarhyttan, Sweden.

From 2004 he makes sound installations to the artist Katerina Mistal's work.

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5
Album Review

Trespass Trio featuring Susana Santos Silva: Live In Oslo

Read "Live In Oslo" reviewed by John Sharpe


Although Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen is the toast of festival-goers across Europe for the variously sized Angles ensembles he fronts, which revel in sometimes exuberant, sometimes heart-rending riff-fuelled anthems, he also pursues somewhat more somber strands of expression. One involves the sort of adventurous sonic explorations heard on Animal Quotes (Relative Pitch, 2022). But another, and the one heard on Live In Oslo, finds him in small group settings designed to negotiate his often dirge-like compositions. For this ...

5
Album Review

Trespass Trio featuring Susana Santos Silva: Live in Oslo

Read "Live in Oslo" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Adding Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva to Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen's Trespass Trio for the 2018 Blowout Festival in Oslo, Norway was “a no-brainer." The inclusion of her trumpet, which features in ensembles led by Mats Gustafsson, Fred Frith, and Torbjörn Zetterberg, to name but a few, requires little or no thought. It is as if the four previous Clean Feed releases by the Trespass Trio, The Spirit Of Pitești (2017), Human Encore (2013), Bruder Beda (2012), and “---was there ...

1
Radio & Podcasts

Trespass Trio, Mikko Innanen, Mark Solborg & Noa Fort

Read "Trespass Trio, Mikko Innanen, Mark Solborg & Noa Fort" reviewed by Maurice Hogue


If you like your music on the edge, this episode of OMJ has plenty, starting with Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen and his Trespass Trio, Live In Oslo, ably abetted by the dynamic trumpet of Susana Santos Silva. Danish guitarist Mark Solborg's Babel draws upon language for his latest, while saxophonist Ivo Perelman continues his regime of constant releases, this time with a dynamite ensemble called the Seven Skies Orchestra. Finnish reed master Mikko Innanen and friends turn the traditional organ ...

5
Album Review

bBb: Animal Quotes

Read "Animal Quotes" reviewed by John Sharpe


Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen practices at least two distinct modes of expression. One is the variously sized Angles ensembles he fronts, which present sometimes exuberant, sometimes heart-rending riff-fuelled anthems to the acclaim of festival crowds across Europe. He also partakes of more arcane pursuits, using his saxophones as tools to examine the very question of what music is. He indulges this latter endeavor in the collective bBb in the company of his compatriot, trombonist Ola Rubin. To say they lean ...

7
Album Review

Vilhelm Bromander: In This Forever Unfolding Moment

Read "In This Forever Unfolding Moment" reviewed by Chris May


Ornette Coleman's haunting “Lonely Woman" is becoming something of a 2023 soundtrack. At the time of writing, we have had memorable versions from Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble on Spirit Gatherer (Spirit Muse), and Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter on The Iridescent Spree (Edition), plus another couple of efforts about which the less said the better. Here comes a third boss edition. Sort of. “Låt Våra Tårar Bli Våra Vapen," which opens side two of Vilhelm Bromander's ...

2
Album Review

Martin Kuchen, Agusti Fernandez, Zlatko Kaucic: The Steps That Resonate

Read "The Steps That Resonate" reviewed by John Sharpe


Once improvisers reach a certain level of experience, it is rare that a meeting between them does not deliver the goods. By this stage they are well versed in the mechanics of collective music making off the map. They have developed a fine sense of when to play and when not, how much they can respond without it becoming predictable, and a host of other similarly arcane split-second decisions which happen faster than thought. But when masters of the art ...

20
Album Review

Angles: A Muted Reality

Read "A Muted Reality" reviewed by Mark Corroto


For Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen, all music is folk music. Proof of that statement is the Angles' release A Muted Reality. Whether he is referencing Balkan, African, Swedish, American jazz or Spanish dialects, he is drawing on kindred spirits in his music. With the various editions of his Angles projects, from trios to 10-piece small big bands, he releases music of the people, i.e. people music. This version of Küchen's Angles is an octet and the eleventh in a continuous ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

In This Forever...

Thanatosis Produktion
2023

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Animal Quotes

Relative Pitch Records
2023

buy

Live in Oslo

Clean Feed Records
2023

buy

Live In Oslo

Clean Feed Records
2023

buy

The Steps That...

Not Two Records
2022

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Videos

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