Jazz Articles about Thomas Strønen

Thomas Stronen's Time is a Blind Guide & Elephant9: Oslo, Norway, March 20-21, 2013

by John Kelman
April 8, 2013

When you've got some time to kill between two festivals--in this case, Burghausen, Germany's B-Jazz Festival and Vossa Jazz in Voss, Norway, the following weekend--there are few better places to do it than Oslo, a city that supports live music better than most cities in the world, with the possible exception of New York. Oslo's residents don't seem to care much whether it's a Saturday night or a Wednesday night; if there's a good show going on, you can count ...

Thomas Stronen: The Tin Drum

by Adriana Carcu
July 4, 2012

One of Norway's most prolific drummers, sampling percussionists and composers, Thomas Strønen is the co-founder of Food, along with British saxophonist Iain Ballamy. The group--which, since 2005, has whittled down from an original quartet that also featured Norwegians Arve Henriksen on trumpet and Mats Eilertsen on bass--released its most recent record, Quiet Inlet, in 2010 (its first for the German ECM label), and regularly includes guests that vary from one show to the next. It is this special element that ...

Tone Ase / Thomas Stronen: Voxpheria

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 15, 2012

The covers of Norwegian label Gigafon, designed by bassist Rune Nergaard, send an unsettling message. The cover of Voxpheria is no different, with its alien scenery and what looks like a homage to Norwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbø's invented torture instrument, Leopold's apple, taken from his The Leopard (Harvill Secker, 2011). And indeed, the highly personal, poetic soundscapes of vocal artist Tone Åse-- known for her trio Bol and the experimental all-female vocal ensemble Trondheim Voices--and prolific ...

Monsters and Puppets: Monsters and Puppets

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 15, 2012

Monsters and Puppets features two prolific and versatile musicians in the Norwegian jazz scene-- keyboardist Maria Kannegaard and drummer Thomas Strønen, both of whom have been playing together since 1997 in the Kannegaard Trio, with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and, recently, in vocalist Ingrid Lode's outfit Billy Fy. This new duo was formed after the two musicians were asked to play a duo set at Molde Jazz Festival. A few days later this completely freely improvised session was recorded.

Thomas Stronen: Parish

by John Kelman
March 9, 2006

While Parish's first album, the live Rica (Challenge, 2003), was more collaborative from a compositional perspective, the group's new eponymous record continues to be the brainchild of Norwegian percussionist Thomas Strønen. With strong players like fellow Norwegian double-bassist Mats Eilertsen, Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson and clarinetist/saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist, Parish couldn't be anything but highly collaborative. The sixteen tracks on the new record may be considerably shorter than the extended workouts on Rica, but this time the bulk of the actual ...

Iain Ballamy: Organic & GM Food

by AAJ Staff
July 25, 2003

Iain Ballamy’s Food peppers the aural senses with 2001’s Organic & GM Food, paying tribute to its inspiration while pushing the music into subconscious areas. If this record is a meal, its contents are not to be easily digested by everyone. It drives forward with a potent musical sensibility and aesthetic sense. The less traditional your tastes are, the better. I hated avant-garde music-- until now.

Free (or avant-garde) jazz sometimes gets a bad rap for being too emotive. Iain ...