November 16, Friday

Lithuanian Russian Drama Theatre I J. Basanaviciaus str. 13

19.00
GORILLA MASK
CANADA, GERMANY

Peter Van Huffel – as
Roland Fidezius – el. b
Rudi Fischerlehner – dr

Ground-shaking grooves, hammering rhythms and wailing melodies, layered with explosive no-holds-barred improvisations: GORILLA MASK is a type of sonic madness roaring with a restless, implacable energy that totters dangerously on the verge of total chaos. They craft spirals of soundin 4 or 5 dimensions, jabbing you in the ribs as they mess with your brain; the ebb and flow of an acutely aware trio of musicians who know what they want and know how to get it. Canadian ex-pat Peter Van Huffel is a saxophonist out of Coltrane, Ayler and Zorn, but he frames his improvisational forays in the context of a trio with hard rock dynamics, riding the churn of Roland Fidezius’ frenetic bass and Rudi Fischerlehner’s pulsating drum kit like a surfer on the biggest wave he’s ever seen.

NILS PETTER MOLVÆR
NORWAY

Nils Peter Molvær – tr
Johan Lindstrøm – g
Jo Berger Myhre – bs
Erland Dahlen – dr

Nils Petter Molvaer is Norwegian.
Nils Petter Molvaer is a trumpeter.
Nils Petter Molvaer is a jazz musician.
However, that explains nothing at all… about an artist who never defines himself by what he is at any given time but always by what is beyond the horizon he is aiming for. Let’s try again.
Nils Petter Molvaer is provocative.
Nils Petter Molvaer is unpredictable.
Nils Petter Molvaer is always a world ahead of himself and the rest of humanity.

He stretches himself out at will in time and space, subjecting himself to the new technology of the moment in order to give ever new expression to his timelessly unbridled romanticism. His music is full of radical tenderness, compact vulnerability and robust fragility. Nils Petter Molvaer is a living contradiction, and that is what makes him so human as an artist.

Buoyancy follows on from his last album Switch. With a quartet in which he himself plays trumpet, electronics and effects, Geir Sundstöl contributes a storehouse of exotic guitars and banjos, Jo Berger Myhre works out on bass, keyboards and more guitars and the former Madrugada drummer Erland Dahlen is responsible as one of Europe’s most versatile sound-painters for drums, percussion, xylophone, piano and any kind of everyday object you can imagine, Molvaer sallies forth on a journey through the horizontal, vertical and temporal. All four musicians back up their formidable arsenal of sound-generators with their personal integrity and with an incredible wealth of experience that each has collected independently of the others.

Buoyancy is a band album. Regardless what direction we approach the music on Buoyancy from, its hypnotic power and intoxicating magic is hard to resist. Seldom if ever has the effect of Molvaer’s music been so psychedelic. Some of the songs come across like swoops past imaginary underwater landscapes, others seem like camera journeys through nocturnal cities. Stoic serenity alternates with a driving pulse. Indonesian tropics evaporate into cyberspace. The music is full of contrasts, both in microcosmos and in macrocosmos. Buoyancy is a persistent search for the roots of the future in the present – or in the just-now, or the just-after-that.