Guitar music tends to end up within given genres, frames or predictable expressions. The composer and guitarist Tellef Øgrim's exciting projects experiment with the guitar's expressive sound expression, are based on jazz, and ends up in a type of PING-PONG guitar music. On Sunday's in love, all his love for the guitar is concentrated and isolated on 6 tracks that vary in soundscapes and where contemporary music contributes to the completion.
Picking sounding like a chubby lyre characterizes the first song «Gdansk-Osztlyn». Here the contrasts of softness and steel become clearly evident, as well as contemporary, if not possibly jazz-inspired improvisations, in the acoustic guitar. Simple motifs with variations, including small pauses, create an intimate sound of weeds and dusty guitar.
1970s mustard gas and murky swamp-aesthetics characterize the track "Sundays in love", where heavy metallic riffs lead into a bubble of lead and copper. Here you get heavy metal in its simplest form without the band. Comfortable for the ears in pure hairy hissing with heated riffs. It is like being in front of the fireplace under a large warm blanket.
On "Bias" pure grunts and echo feedback come in the form of running riffs and driving ostinatos. The guitar as a supersonic falcon. The howls are heard over the Norwegian mountains and it can sometimes feel extraterrestrial as the guitar leaves the earth's orbit.
Do you like the guitar? Do you like music that goes a little further? Do you not support Norwegian music? Buy, listen (or try to make a cover) of one of the pieces composed by Tellef Øgrim. Sunday's in Love is Amour shooting guitar picks off 6-string lovemaking towards mind-boggling contemporary composers and jazz composers. A fascinating nut of Norwegian improvised solo music, recommended for anyone who does not like the bass.
Øgrim Takana Johansen Trio Red lamplight on the red brick wall reviewed by Eyal Hareuveny for Salt-Peanuts: «The trio explores modes and strategies of free improvisation during this live performance. Tanaka’s playing inside the piano sets the mysterious, sound-searching spirit of the opening title piece, embraced by the subtle pulse of Johansen and the atmospheric guitar lines of Øgrim. Øgrim suggests a more thorny and raw dynamics on Trinisla but answered by playful-rhythmic gestures by Tanaka and Johansen."
Peeter Uuskyla/Tellef Øgrim/Anders Berg/Per Anders Nilsson: Isn Hi Lagt Sae På Fjellvatna (2020, Simlas): Swedish drummer, I recognize him from one of Peter Brötzmann's best trios, has his own trio with Øgrim (guitar) and Berg (bass), adding Nilsson (sax) this time, a little extra schrill to go with the thrash. B+(***) . Tom Hull, Streamnotes, November 30, 2020
What is most striking about this album is the way in which the musicians anticipate and respond to each other. The Free Jazz Collective on Oslo Hærverk by Uuskyla Øgrim & Berg
Oslo Hærverk on Avant Music News' list of "Excellent Releases first half of 2018" HERE
Our final verdict on the album "The Leif", which appears next week at Simlas produksjoner, can be summed up briefly: Perfectly successful! – Global Music News
The single 42-minute track allows for no questions and takes no prisoners...Hearing the musicians in their natural state is the purest experience...This disc reminds me of the response we used to give to complainers, "If it's too loud, then you're too old." – Marc Corroto for All About Jazz
"It gives us free improvised music one otherwise is accustomed to hearing from musicians in the landscape where Mats Gustafsson, Paal Nilssen-Love, Peter Brötzmann and that lot lives.", Salt Peanuts about LAIV. (Norwegian text HERE, English HERE)
"–A very enjoyable album and once again Tellef Øgrim & Anders Berg have their feet firmly planted in Experimental Avant-Garde Music. The addition of Peeter Uuskyla on drums has lifted their sound to an extra level. If you enjoy Scandinavian free jazz at the experimental level, this album is a real treat for you!" - Unfretted.com about LAIV.
"This trio sounds like a rock/jazz power trio from the early seventies, pre-fusion, moving in immense waves without many actual solos, more of a group sound. The set is mostly organic, explosive only in sections, the trio taking their time to explore each other’s playing. This set seems to be more about mood and vibes, kind of dark and mystical at times, like an ancient ritual taking place around us. We can’t help but be enveloped by the cautious, creative spirits." - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG - December 31. 2017.
Laiv was one of five "picks of the week" at AvantMusicNews - November 27. 2017.
"It’s a well-recorded set that succeeds in offering challenging substance in an intimate atmosphere." – AvantMusicnews reviews What is It, - What is It, - What is It, - September 2017
"Contrasting the stylistic traits exhibited by some of their peers – Trespass Trio’s contemporary jazz sensibilities or Fire! (Orchestra)’s progressive approach – the trio’s music is an oblique and deconstructed but red-hot mix of jazz, rock, and several other styles in between. As a whole, Ullr is an engaging, captivating, and often unrivaled listen." - Freejazzblog.org
"It is all carried by Peeter Uuskyla's energetic drumming." - Orkesterjournalen, Sweden
"Guitar, bass and drums is a classic power trio-setting. Such is also the setting on this record. There ends all likeness with the power trios I know...Like reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Hard to understand it truly is. " - Lira, Sweden
" this is very personal music, which captivates both the brain, heart and feet. This is an album crammed full of exciting free-jazz music, which surprises, at least this writer, and who should be brought to light all sorts of festivals and jazz clubs in the coming years.
Now the day was suddenly so much better!" - Salt-Peanuts about Ullr, March 2017.
"Uuskyla’s trio is taut and metallic, sprung, flexed and sinuous, hitting hard on the recoil." - Dalston Sound about Ullr - March 2017.
"In this debut album, the trio shows how much the Scandinavian scene remains vibrant and with names that deserved to be more recognized worldwide." - Free Form, Free Jazz (in Portuguese) about Ullr - March 2017.
"While we have no more Power Tools music (Bill Frisell, Melvin Gibbs and Ronald Shannon Jackson), there is the Scandinavian power trio led by drummer Peeter Uuskyla to fill the void....Pulse master Uuskyla glues this affair." - AllAboutJazz - February 2017.
"Oh! This is just terrific! Unstoppable energy and propulsion...intricate interplay...knife-edge, thrilling balance..." - Customer John Cratchley about Ullr at simlas.bandcamp.com
"If you enjoy Scandinavian free jazz at the experimental level, this album is a real treat for you!" - Unfretted.com - January 2017.
A track from Ullr, a trio record with Peeter Uuskyla, Anders Berg released in January 2017, was accepted by the editors at AllAboutJazz as a featured download. The curator responsible for the feature, wriote:" If Jaco Pastorius meets Prince in the space beyond...the ensuing discussion might sound something like this." – AllAboutJazz - February 2017.
Fat Fit - Solos for Guitars is featured on the radio show Towards The Margins - December 2016
Avant Music News reviews my solo album Fat Fit - Solos for Guitars ""....the normal displaced and alienated into something strange" - October 31 2016
Hamar Arbeiderblad cannot stay concentrated (2005):
".....surely a fantastic record for all free jazz enthusiasts, but for those of us who never got a grip of this genre listening to this record is hard work....the only thing that makes me understand that a new song has started is the space of a few seconds between the tracks...it was very hard to stay concentrated throughout an hour of this."
Unfretted.com about Fat Fit - Solos for Guitars:"This is one of those albums I’m careful not to play in the car, too many random frightening noises, but saying that there are some great noises! Scrubbly doubbly guitar noises, hovery bovery noises, “what the f*** was that?” noises. The Hadron Particle Synth is certainly a great device, lives up to its name. It really helps to read the notes above when listening to the album as it can vary between solo guitar pieces that seem very introspective and hypnotic, through to full blast assaults on the edge of the sonic environment. Once again Tellef steps up and takes his crown as the most adventurous avant-garde fretless guitarist in Northern Europe."
Unfretted.com
Unfretted.com about KÖLEN: "A very enjoyable album and once again Tellef Øgrim & Anders Berg have their feet firmly planted in Experimental Ambient Avant-Garde Music. If you enjoyed their previous work, you are going to love this one!" (June 2016)
Avant Music News writes about KÖLEN:
"....it’s possible to hear in these largely hard-edged pieces an aural image of craggy stone thrust up into thin, twilit air
Unfretted.com writes about KUME that “I really enjoyed this album, its a great trip from start to finish. Tellef Øgrim & Anders Berg work well together providing a unique musical experience. If you are into Ambient Avant Garde with an experimental slant – this is for you!” (December 2015)
Chris Haines, reviewer at Freejazzblog, has the album November by Anders Berg and Tellef Øgrim, as this year's no. 10. Read his review here. Excerpt: "...the pair have created a fine album of improvised duo pieces, which also contains a healthy amount of electronic-based music enabling them, at times, to create a much fuller sound, and work with an extended palette of colours and rhythms. The track Oslo is a good example of this coming on like a more edgy Fennesz track, whilst the more straight forward improvising of 422.2 with its funky bass motive and free-rock guitar interjections played over the clattering of electronic drums is interspersed with sparser moments." (February 2015)
Mugetuft's perfomance at the big opening of 2014's regional art exhibition Kunst rett vest at Fossekleiva (Svelvik, Norway) gets a "perfect" from the local newspaper.
Jazznytt (the Norwegian Jazz Magazine) writes abou the album "What's wrong with Now", (Clementine Gasser-Jacek Kochan-Tellef Øgrim): "an atmospheric play with sound and rhythm, that it challenges the listener, but if you give it time and your patience the chances are great that you, as I, find out that even something this strange can give you musical pleasures, even if it takes time".
"Blending improvisation with electronics-based music, Wagon 8 is a strong debut for Ogrim's less-than-conventional instrument and collective". - AllAboutJazz
Nordlys, Tromsø:
"...the music carries a lot of personality, from time to time almost pleasant and beautiful, but just as often distant an experimental."
Dagsavisen, Oslo:
Roald Helgheim reviews our new album Wagon 8 in the Norwegian daily Dagsavisen on the 22nd. of April. I am very honored that he did, and very, very pleased that he seems to like what he hears. He dislikes our attempts to label the music in the press release, but goes on to write that the music itself surprises him in a positive way and that this goes to show that there was nothing wrong with just plain jazz. He writes: "With Wagon 8 Tellef Ogrim is back in jazz land, but i think it is a complicated detour to describe the music as electro-acoustic nu-jazz as the press text does. To me this is simply jazz. It all depends on the result....Therefore I am surprised in a positive way by the music Ogrim jokingly calls reclaiming Polish Free Jazz. It only goes to show that there is nothing wrong with that jazz either."
Jazznytt (the Norwegian Jazz magazine) about Wagon 8:
This is obviously a scam. Øgrim's plan must have been first to lure the music reviewers into writing seriously about something that was a musical joke, and then to write a book about it.
Side2 about Wagon 8 (2007):
Wagon 8 is not light music. It is demanding to play and to approach - but by golly it is good. If you give yourself the opportunity to be challenged there is much beautiful exciting and original music in wagon number 8.
Unfretted.com:
"Tellef Ogrim's new cd "Wagon 8" is truly a piece of art - it deserves a place within Norway's top "jazz" albums.
For the record, Norway is, in my view, among the greatest nations when it comes to producing high quality, improvised music."
Bruce Lee Gallanter about Do I the In: "I was impressed with his playing, arranging and the varied personnel. This new disc also has an inspired line-up of musicians from Austria (FH), Norway (TO), Poland (JK) and the US (JF). Each player has contributed two pieces as well as three great groups improvisations."
"I have to say, that name is just fucking terrible, but ok, let’s go with it", writes Joel Elliot at Cokemachineglow reviewing Musiconspiracy's Do I the In.
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