<\/p>\n
The ultimate version<\/p>\n
Ola Kvernberg\u2019s Steamdome was for at least one listener the most sensationally visceral album to come his way during 2018. Part future-jazz, part EDM, part avant-rock, part contemporary-classical, wrap-around shamanistic. It was Kvernberg\u2019s follow-up to 2014\u2019s The Mechanical Fair, which has now been issued in an extensively recalibrated version recorded live at the Molde International Jazz Festival in 2016. There are similarities between Steamdome and The Mechanical Fair Live, as you would expect of works coming from the same pen. But on the surface, the two albums could hardly be more different. Steamdome sounds like everyone involved had ingested a truckload of 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine. It is the most intense moments of Stravinsky\u2019s Rite Of Spring ramped up for the age of anxiety. By contrast, The Mechanical Fair Live is restorative, lyrical, balm for the soul, burnished yin to the earlier album\u2019s beserker yang. Premiered in 2013, the work went through a quintet version, a with-strings version, the 2014 album version and further versions with incrementally expanding line-us, before finally arriving at the incarnation heard on Live. \u201cMolde felt like the first time we managed to do it in its entirety,\u201d says Kvernberg. \u201cWithout any compromises being made for budget reasons or because of insufficient rehearsal time. So maybe ultimate is the best word.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ola Kvernberg\u2019s Steamdome was for at least one listener the most sensationally visceral album to come his way during 2018. Part future-jazz, part EDM, part avant-rock, part contemporary-classical, wrap-around shamanistic. It was Kvernberg\u2019s follow-up to 2014\u2019s The Mechanical Fair, which has now been issued in an extensively recalibrated version recorded live at the Molde International Jazz Festival in 2016.<\/p>\n
In the press pack sent out with Steamdome, Kvernberg called the album \u201cbrazen.\u201d Does he have a one-word description for Live?
\n\u201cMegalomaniacal,\u201d he says with a smile. And certainly, Kvernberg\u2019s pursuit of the perfect rendering of the suite was single minded, long drawn-out and subject to much revision. Premiered in 2013, the work went through a quintet version, a with-strings version, the 2014 album version and further versions with incrementally expanding line-us, before finally arriving at the incarnation heard on Live. \u201cMolde felt like the first time we managed to do it in its entirety,\u201d says Kvernberg. \u201cWithout any compromises being made for budget reasons or because of insufficient rehearsal time. So maybe ultimate is the best word.\u201d
\nWhatever word you choose, the new album defies categorization. \u201cNothing makes me happier than the lack of genre-specific stickers,\u201d says Kvernberg. \u201cBut the world loves labels, right? So I was fooling around with calling it ADM, acoustic dance music\u2026 Composing it was also the first time I went full-on with my film scoring methodology only without an actual film, just with an imaginary storyline.\u201d<\/p>\n
The suite is a long way from Kvernberg\u2019s first forays into music. Brought up in a family which had been involved in Norwegian folk music for several generations, he took to jazz in 1997. His breakout album was Hot Club De Norvege featuring Ola Kvernberg in 2000. As the name suggests, Hot Club De Norvege was inspired by Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt\u2019s work with the Quintette du Hot Club de France in the 1930s, the default portal for violinists wanting to get involved in jazz.
\nYou can imagine that a second entry point could have been Ornette Coleman. Coleman\u2019s violin playing might not have been to everybody\u2019s taste (after hearing him in a New York club, Miles Davis asked, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you get yourself a fiddle player?\u201d) but Kvernberg\u2019s bitter-sweet melodicism resonates with Coleman compositions such as \u201cLonely Woman.\u201d
\nOn The Mechanical Fair Live, Kvernberg is also heard on viola. Few serious violinists are violists, and few serious violists are violinists. How come Kvernberg made the leap? \u201cI\u2019ve been playing violin since I was three years old,\u201d he says. \u201cI discovered the viola around 2010, and since then it\u2019s been my other big love. As a jazz player, finding it was a revelation. Its range is a lot closer to the tenor sax, while the violin is more like the soprano or sopranino sax. But it\u2019s not just about pitch. The viola\u2019s timbre means it\u2019s often easier to blend into the rest of the music. It\u2019s a very between-the-lines, ensemble-friendly instrument. But when you need to stick your head out and blast through a wall of sound, the violin is better.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his liner essay \u2013 which includes an evocative passage about listening to The Mechanical Fair while driving alone for hours through a forest at night \u2013 photographer Andr\u00e9 L\u00f8yning notes that it was important to Kvernberg that there would be \u201cno written music on stage.\u201d
\nGiven the complexity of the score, and Kvernberg\u2019s \u201cmegalomaniacal\u201d pursuit of its perfect realisation, this presents a challenge for musicians. But there are excellent precedents, among them Sun Ra, who also knew exactly how he wanted his music to sound. Ra drilled the Arkestra for hours, day in, day out, so that every detail of his arrangements was etched in the musicians\u2019 minds \u2013 achieving a level of retention as deep as the muscle memory ballet dancers acquire through repeated rehearsals.
\n\u201cThe single most important thing when playing music is ownership of it,\u201d says Kvernberg. \u201cThe performer must fundamentally believe in every single note he or she is playing. This boils down to internalising the music. It\u2019s way beyond mere memorization, it\u2019s until you don\u2019t think about the rights and wrongs anymore.\u201d Accordingly, the core band at Molde performed without scores.
\nAside from the arrangements on The Mechanical Fair Live, something else that distinguishes it from the 2014 studio version is the audio mix, which is Kvernberg\u2019s first. \u201cIt was a big project for me,\u201d says Kvernberg. \u201cNot just because there were more than 120 audio tracks, but because my previous go-to mixer was Morten Stendahl, a true sonic scientist. Plus there was a Todd Terje remix [from the studio recording]. So there was plenty to live up to.\u201d
\nWhich Kvernberg totally does. The Mechanical Fair Live is entrancing, a delight from composition through performance to post-production. For at least one listener, it may well turn out to be the most transporting album to come his way in 2019.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mechanical Fair Live is restorative, lyrical, balm for the soul, burnished yin to the earlier album\u2019s beserker yang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[6],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36503","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-grappa","7":"product_shipping_class-vinyl-shipping","8":"uni_artist_tag-anja-lauvdal","9":"uni_artist_tag-eirik-hegdal","10":"uni_artist_tag-erik-nylander","11":"uni_artist_tag-even-helte-hermansen","12":"uni_artist_tag-kirsti-huke","13":"uni_artist_tag-kristoffer-lo","14":"uni_artist_tag-ola-kvernberg","15":"uni_artist_tag-ole-morten-vagan","16":"uni_artist_tag-petter-vagan","17":"uni_artist_tag-trondheimsolistene","18":"uni_main_artist_tag-ola-kvernberg","19":"uni_artist_genre-jazz","21":"first","22":"instock","23":"taxable","24":"shipping-taxable","25":"purchasable","26":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/36503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=36503"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=36503"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grappa.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=36503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}