By Anthony Shaw
Raoul Bjorkenheim is a guitarist born and brought up in the States by his
Finnish mother. After completing studies at Berklee he has spent most of his
professional life between the two countries, working with the likes of
Finnish percussionist/composer Edward Vesala or progressive producer/bassist
Bill Laswell. He achieved recognition on both sides of the Atlantic in the early
1990's with his own band Krakatau with two stunning recordings Ritual and
Alive, the former now being rereleased on Cuneiform. The next two albums,
Volition and Matinale, were also instrumental in establishing Krakatau's cred-
entials, and there is talk of them being put out 'soon' on ECM.
I caught Raoul Bjorkenheim in the Tse Tse Club Helsinki earlier in May,
playing one of his last concerts with his current trio in Finland before his
move to New York at the beginning of June. An accidental meeting at the bar lead to a telephone interview a few days later catching him in the middle of his packing. The contrast between the intensity of that club atmosphere filled with the howls
and hubris of Bjorkenheim's guitar, bass of Hannu Rantanen and drums of
Mikko Hassinen, and the affability of the man at the end of the phone was
hard to reconcile. A similar extreme of style is suggested by the 2-word
synopsis of Bjorkenheim offered by AMG: dark and ambient. At least in
Finland most people associate him with the introspective, arching, aching
guitar work he created in the late 1980's with Krakatau. But further
research of his portfolio (readily available at www.musicfinland.com/bjorkenheim) provides ample evidence of a broader depth of sound. Two contrasting examples are his collaborations with guitarist/bouzouki maestro Nicky Skopeltis on Revelation(Douglas Music 1997), or his work with the Finnish big band UMO, referred to in the interview. The discussion also reveals the current directions his music is taking him, and what he hopes for on his return to the US.
AAJ: OK maybe I can start off by asking about recent developments and future
plansÃÂ
RB: Well you'll see on the homepage all the basic information, though you'll
notice it's written in rather a trendy tone - we were really trying to get
more of a rock feeling to it then. We have been getting quite young
audiences lately.
AAJ: Yuh, when I saw you last week in the Tse Tse club it was a very mixed
audience.
RB: Yes, at the club it was. But very often at jazz concerts you know the
average age is around 40. But the Tse Tse has a different audience, a little
younger.
AAJ: OK, so can I ask something about the current juncture?
RB: Well it's a very simple thing really: our rent here was being raised by
50%, and at the same time I had the offer of a flat in New York. It's been a
financial disaster living in Finland since you don't make that much money
with anything to do with music. I've been teaching here in Sibelius Academy,
and doing a little bit of gigging, but also I've been doing some
compositional work. I got a grant a write some music, but that sort of work
is few and far between. So it's been kind of a scrounging type of existence
here. I know it's not going to be a bed of roses there. But I do have some
good contacts there, so not least I'll get the chance to play with some good
musicians there. I think that's one of my main motivations of going to
America: to get a fresh perspective on things. Finland is so isolated in a
way, although I feel very at home and part of it. But then again it will be
interesting to be in a situation where I don't have anything - just me in a
situation where you just have to play.
AAJ: Is that something you haven't had the chance to do over here?
RB: Well I've had that situationÃÂ
like I was invited to play with Bill Laswell
and Nicky Skopelitis' band Ekstasis and we played a gig in Warsaw, where we had just one
rehearsal before. It turned out to be a very nice gig. I realised then that I
have learnt quite a lot, and have a lot of tools to work with; so I guess
it's that kind of experience that I'm looking for. Not that I'm under any
illusions, that it will be a bed of roses. You know American musicians
usually come to Europe to make their money - in America they just teach!
AAJ: So is it true to say you're going back to the US in search of new
stimulus?
RB: I think it's going to be very useful to go and check out those clubs of
course - it's a place I have a strong affection for. There's a very strong
saxophone tradition. I usually don't listen to guitar players much. I don't
feel they have much to offer. Sax players are better story-tellers
AAJ: Yes, I read on one of the covers that you see yourself not so much as a
guitarist's guitarist but a saxophonist's guitarist!
RB: I didn't write that but I guess it still applies. There's been a time
when I've been reassessing the guitar and playing things that are very
deliberately guitaristic, like legato with the left hand, where you get very
smooth flowing lines, which you can mix with very rhythmic things that would
usually be associated with a saxophone player. That's what I've been working
on. So I'm sure that by going listening to Wayne Crantz a couple of evenings
it will be a good challenge, and an incentive to keep working.
AAJ: Have you been doing things with saxophonists lately? When I saw you in Helsinki
you were working with a 3-piece. Earlier you were working with the modern Finnish
bigband UMO. Is it something you have missed?
RB: No, no. We had a saxophone player in the band (Krakatau) for six or seven
years - Jone Takamaki. But we also have a big band together called
Suhkan Uhka (an untranslatable Finnish pun - I think)) though it's not on
the home page yet. It's a large band, with four wind instruments. I also played
a gig in Sicily with Tim Hagan the trumpet player - a Tribute to Miles,
though we didn't do any Miles pieces! (For those pieces see Electrifying Miles
with UMO, Bjorkenheim and Hagen, A-Records AL 73153) So I have had quite a share
of playing with wind players.
But I do like playing with guitarists. I've just been playing bass on a
rock recording. That was a nice challenge for me to get into the groove
with the drummer.
AAJ: And you did this as...
RB:...not under a pseudonym?
RB: Yes, yes. It was one of my ploys - with not enough work as a guitar player
I thought there might be the possibility of some work as a pre-rhythm bass.
Actually the record I did was with a guy called Jukka Orma, who played with
a Finnish punk/rock band called Sielun Veljet. So we did the record with him, and
a guy who played with Krakatau called Affe Forsman. And we'd played so
many years together, although I'd always been on guitar, that it was very
easy to get into the groove.
AAJ: So you're off to the States with an open book?
RB: Well I know some things are brewing. First of all a record I made called
Apocalypso, and it's a thing originally made with 30 guitars and 8 bass
players and 4 drummers. So I got a grant to do it, and went into the studio
and I did all the overdubs myself. It's a record on which I played the whole
orchestra - and I designed the cover and produced it as well - so it's
something I can really stand behind. That's coming out in September on
Cuneiform.
Then there's a compilation of acoustic guitar playing coming out next fall,
compiled by Henry Kaiser. I did a record with him a couple of years ago.
There are going to be people like Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadborn, Fred
Frith and Henry Kaiser of course. I hope this will lead to someone hearing
this and calling me and offering a gig, and that will lead to something
else. My experience of whenever being in doubt is to just go ahead and do
it, because it usually leads to something else anyway!
AAJ: So will you be coming back to Europe soon? You mentioned to me that you
would be playing in some festivals...
RB: Oh yes definitely. I have a commissioned work for Avanti, the (modern
Finnish) chamber orchestra. That's going to be performed in Porvoo, Finland
next summer. That's for violin, electric guitar and orchestra. Now I have
finally got rid of this one behemoth, the Apocalypso album, I can
concentrate on compositional work.
But my main love is playing in trios, and that's what I hope I'll be doing
more.Two months ago I came back from a little tour with these Norwegian
musicians called Scorch Trio, a little bit like Scorchio. They
tour very often in America with Mats Gustafsson the Swedish saxophone
player. And they also play with Kim Vandermark the American saxophonist from
Chicago, and their bass player plays with Hamid Drake.
AAJ: So they're in the same vein as you, spending time between Europe and the
States?
RB: Yes hopefully, that would be ideal. Well I also expect to do something
with Bill Laswell , but that again takes me away from the jazz area. But I
wouldn't mind every now and then travelling to Chicago and playing a weekend
there, or going down to Oakland to do a gig. I still haven't played the
Fillmore West. I still want to do that.
AAJ: You've not made it yet!
RB: No, but I will!
AAJ: OK, how about time for your 'ambient music'? That was something I saw on
your homepage, and you'd obviously enjoyed doing it at the time, and writing
it up!
RB: You mean Phantom City. That's a very nice project. The first one was done
by Paul Schutze, an Australian. Well he's been living in London, and he put
together a soundscape which he sent to Bill Laswell to add some bass, and
then it was sent to me to add guitar. Then it went to Seattle for some
trombone - basically it went to 7 different countries, before it was
eventually mixed by Paul in Basel. It was like a virtual band. It didn't
exist in real time. But then we got a couple of gigs, and it was so easy to
lock into what Bill Laswell was doing.
AAJ: And you made one live recording of that band?ÃÂ
RB: Yes Shiva Recoil is released (Virgin AMBT 21). But it's unfortunate these
ambient records are hard to find nowadays because they are out of print. I
have only one copy myself of them. At the time Virgin did a series on
ambient discs, but only pressed a small volume of them. So now that the
series is finished they're not reprinting any of them.
AAJ: And it's too early for any re-release?
RB: Yes, and it's too bad because the first one we did, we recorded sending
it back and forth, is called Site Anubis (Big Cat ABB 106). I think it's one
of the nicest records I've ever done.
On this high note the interview dissolved into Finnish, with Bjorkenheim
rushing into his kitchen to save his son Cosmo from burning
their supper on the kitchen stove! How the artist must struggle for his daily bread!
I am now eagerly awaiting Raoul Bjorkenheim's return to these Scandinavian shores in
summer 2002, and very jealous of any New Yorkers who spot his name on the
gig list of their local club - don't miss him, he may soon be appearing near you!
