After being out of the wilderness for WAY to long, 120 Days are back with a new track “Osaka” which will be release on new Modular Records imprint, Club Mod this October.

“Osaka” is a anthemic, punishing techno beast, that gives a good indication of where the new album is headed in a much more club styled environment, yet still remaining with at least one foot in their kraut rock rhythms of the past.

The new album is mixed and mastered with release dates announced shortly. We are still finalising release arrangements for the UK, EU, US.

Listen and check out the details of release for Osaka, as well as a brand new video for the track here, by Australian Creative Studio Expialidocious -. http://modularpeople.com/news/watch-120-days-osaka/10243.html

120 Days are just back from a festival tour of China and new Scandinavian and European Live dates will be announced very soon!

Dette skillet er i dag bare relevant i sine mest rendyrkede former og mange av dagens musikere er å finne i programmet til vidt forskjel- lige sjanger-spesifikke festivaler. Komponistene av årets bestillingsverk White (Stian Westerhus og Øystein Moen), er slike artister, MoHa! likeså. Formidlere som står stødig i sin egen tradisjon, trenger ikke være redde for å omfavne og trekke inn uttrykk som både utfordrer og spiller ball med denne.

Det dionysiske er et sentralt element i klubbkulturen. Begrepet stam- mer fra den greske halvguden Dionysos som var utgangspunktet for en ekstasekult som drev med en antikk form for utagerende festing.

I det dionysiske ligger ikke bare festen og mengden hoppende glade mennesker med hendene over hodet. Like viktig er den grensespren- gende tøylesløshet og bejaende eksperimentering som også gjerne kjennetegner kunstnere som videreutvikler sitt felt. Festivalens avslut- ningskveld toppes av Optimo DJs, et typisk eksempel på slike artister, som tar festen på alvor og bringer klubbmusikken videre gjennom sin tilnærming til det dionysiske.

Populærmusikkens store oppslutning truer ikke kunstmusikken, bare de organisasjonene og institusjonene som lever av den.I et historisk perspektiv er tidvis skiftende fokus og oppslutning rundt sjangre og uttrykk en del av den normale kunstutviklingen. Nye former vokser frem og dør hen, noe videreføres, noe blir lagt til side, for kan- skje å trekkes frem på et senere tidspunkt.

Mens norske jazzformidleres nesten selvutslettende utvidelse av jazz- begrepet gjennom nittitallet bidro til å utvikle musikken, førte samtids- musikkformidleres negasjon i samme periode til kunstnerisk stagnasjon og gjentagelser. Billedkunstfeltet har i enda lengre tid hatt en lignende strategi som jazzen og omfavnet tilstøtende uttrykk i stort monn. Dette er kanskje en av grunnene til at lydkunst oftere presenteres i billed- kunstkontekst enn musikk-kontekst. Paradokset er at publikum som kan sette pris på lydkunst ofte er et musikkinteressert publikum, kanskje mer enn et tradisjonelt billedkunstpublikum. Ved å sette forskjellige kunstformer i samme kontekst, åpnes feltene

og tilgjengeligheten økes. Sammenhenger og motsetninger mellom uttrykkene trer frem. Det er selvsagt en fare for at nøye tilskårne råvarer kokes ut til tyntflytende sodd i prosessen. Men når dette blir gjort med kvalitativt likeverdige arbeider, med et mangfold av tangeringspunkter og fellesreferanser, blir resultatet forhåpentligvis komplementære retter som gir en enklere vei til forståelse for publikum. Samarbeidet mellom Foreningen Ekko og Lydgalleriet er et resultat av en slik tankegang. ␣

God festival! Jørgen Larsson — Lydgalleriet

Asle Bakke Brodin — Foreningen Ekko

For oppdatert oversikt over innholdet på årets festival se våre: ARTISTSIDER og for tidspunkter spillesteder m.m se våre PROGRAMSIDER

Bernard Fevre, the man in fact behind Black Devil Disco Club, returned two years later with the aptly titled 28 After, an album that stuck so closely to the debut’s template that many reviewers immediately started speculating again as to whether these were new recordings or another batch of tracks from the 70s. Circus, then, represents an unequivocal step into the present for Black Devil Disco Club, if one that still makes a virtue of Fevre’s relative anonymity– this time by hiding him behind guest stars. Reportedly consisting of all new recordings, at the very least each of Circus’ 10 tracks features freshly recorded guest vocals from current artists like YACHT and Cosmetics as well as acts closer to Fevre’s vintage, such as Afrika Bambaataa and Nancy Sinatra.

Black Devil Disco Club plays at USF Verftet friday 23. september.

This years EKKO mix is finally finished!

The official mix for this year’s EKKO festival is now available for your listening pleasure. It has been a conscious effort to avoid traditional club music and chose more listenable, experimental and somewhat unearthly material. The likes of Susanne Sundfør, Moha! and Planningtorock definetly bring something different to the table. The mix is meant to be a listenable object which can be used on different occasions or as a dive into this years program.

Casiokids – Aapenbaringen Over Aaskammen (Exclusive track)
Baertur – Do Baertur
Stian Westerhus – Sing With Me Somehow
Machine Birds – Over And Over
Sail A Whale – Find Me A Boy
Gala Drop – Drop
Brandt Brauer Frick – Caffeine
Planningtorock – The Breaks
Bjørn Torske – Nitten Nitti
Matias Aguayo – Rollerskate
Isolee – My Hi-Matic
Susanne Sundfør – The Brothel

EKKO No.8 Mix by Admir Korjenic

Fra Tromsø kommer en ny meget lovende norsk artist. Burning God Little lager popmusikk. Dansbart, vakkert og stemningsfullt på samme tid.

Martin Hartgen som han egentlig heter, har på rekordtid fått en spesiell plass i Nabovarsel. Det er på mange måter et riktig valg: Skal man først trekke inn en artist fra et annet miljø enn det som er etablert i Bergen, bør det være en artist som trekker inn noen nye musikalske uttrykk, ideer og impulser. Det gjør BGL: ved å bruke elementer fra postpunk og alternativ pop og pakke det inn i elektronisk pop. Det er noe internasjonalt over dette og vi gleder oss til å høre mer fra Burning God Little.

Notes On Being Snowblind EP kommer ut i september og vil også inneholde en remiks fra Barker & Baumecker (DE / Ostgut Ton).

1. Notes On Being Snowblind
2. Cango
3. My Friends Won’t Blossom Like They Should
4. Tusen Bita

En musikkvideo har blitt satt sammen til Tusen Bita. Den kan du se her:

SAT 01. OCTOBER
20:00: PIERRE HENRY

Tickets to Pierre Henry will be ready in a couple of days. In the meantime we recommend acquiring either weekend pass or festival pass which both grant access to the concert.

Born in 1927, Pierre Henry is one of the founding fathers of musique concrete. He never went to school due to ill health, but enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire aged 10 and studied under Olivier Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Quincy Jones and Philip Glass).

Henry rejected traditional instruments to make music out of electronics and the world around us. 1950′s Symphonie pour un homme seul is a 12-movement work composed entirely from the sounds of the human body. Interested in the idea of pop as a pagan ritual, Henry collaborated with English prog band Spooky Tooth on the rock mass Ceremony (1969). In 1964 Henry had a pop hit with ‘Psyche Rock’. It has since been remixed by Fatboy Slim and William Orbit, sampled countless times, and used as the basis for the soundtrack to the cartoon Futurama. He worked with US trio Violent Femmes on their Freak Magnet album, which languished unreleased for three years after they were dropped by their label.

The chilean beatmaestro returns to Ekko with some nice singles (“Roller Skate”, “Minimal”) and nice vibe. His eclectic style fits both the festivals program and the audiences taste perfectly.

Passionate about an impressive variety of music genres and rhythms, schooled in Transllusion as much as in The Jackson 5 or The B-52’s, Aguayo is well positioned from an early age to make unusual connections in music. He moves his first music steps in Cologne, Germany, where all along the 90ies the Kompakt people, Wolfgang Voigt, Michael Mayer and Jurgen Paape to name a few, were reimagining and shaping the future of German techno. Aguayo takes a plunge into that rising and exciting music scene and takes active part by organizing events, djing at the legendary Liquid Sky parties and making his first attempt at producing music, together with Mayer, in the group Zimt. But it’s not until the beginning of 2000, when he teams up with Dirk Leyers as part of the project Closer Musik, that Aguayo reaches proper fame. In a time where techno was dominated by clicks’n’cuts aesthetics, After Love, the album they released for Kompakt in 2002, was a truly epoch-making album, nothing sounded like it and soon Closer Musik became the inescapable reference for the growing pop minimal scene to come.

HOLY OTHER

Depending on which article or news story you read, Holy Other could hail from Manchester, Gothenburg, Stockport, or Berlin. The fact-shy producer is apparently now settled in Manchester, but there’s a sense of disconnection that remains integral to his ghostly productions. There’s a strong sense of loneliness in the swarm of sampled vocals that make up the spine of the tracks on With U, reflecting both in the way Holy Other treats his sources and the mixture of genres he pulls from.

JOYCE HINTERDING

Joyce Hinterding is an artist who exhibits both nationally and internationally and is recognised for her work across a range of discipline areas, including sculpture,
object arts, sound art and digital arts. Originally trained in gold and silver smithing, she worked professionally in the industry while developing an expanded and experimental relationship to the field of object arts. Her postgraduate research into acoustics and musical instrument design led her to do further study in electronics, alchemy and web design, and develop an ongoing learning relationship with the digital and analogue arts, including 3D computer graphics, sound and video. Her work is currently included on the NSW HSC Art Curricula and she often collaborates with artist David Haines to produce large-scale immersive video and sound works. She is represented by Breenspace, Sydney, and her recorded audio work has been released by Antiopic NYC and Sigma Editions.

WHITE is a norwegian genre-crushing electronic duo that has been working together in various constellations for more than half a decade. WHITE is the most recent project from these two men, initiated by the EKKO festival itself and featuring the avant-electro firebrand SUSANNE SUNDFØR. Even if the duo is most renowned for their exceptional contribute to the norwegian avantgarde impro scene, WHITE uses a totally different set of musical pallette. With inspiration drawn from such different sources as Arne Nordheim, Kate Bush and Justice, WHITE tries to employ a non-restrained creativity in the process of writing and performing their music. Tightly sewn together compositions with expressive use of forms and dynamics, all dressed up on stage by the vibrant KYRRELYS. Expect intense drama, heroic melodies and an epilepsy-educing visual show.

CASIOKIDS
http://casiokids.com/

Casiokids is a more than a band from Bergen, but a phenomenon. The foreign press is crazy about a band singing in their native tongue, but using glorious and catchy electro-pop as some sort of “Trojan horse”. With inspiration in styles such as afrobeat, synthpop and David Bowie: Casiokids have quickly turned to favourites in the UK and played alongside Hot Chip on their European tour.

120 DAYS
http://www.120days.no/

This is pop degraded, rock electrified, dance deregulated. Part electronic bliss, part drone rock terror, part shimmery pop hooks ’120 Days’ is nightmare music for when you’re widest awake. Head down this road, nightcrawlers, and there’s no turning back.

MACHINE BIRDS
http://www.nrk.no/urort/Artist/MachineBirds/default.aspx

Machine Birds is a duo with their base in Bergen. Maria Skranes and Marte Eberson creates synthesizer-filled ambient-pop together and the song “One Last Try” was fully deserved nominated to “Årets Urørt 2011” by NRK. The two girls are currently working on their debut-album, but in the meantime they proven to be one of the most hypnotizing live-acts in their genre from Norway. This is in part due to Maria Skranes wonderful achievements as a vocalist and Ebersons complete control over they synthesizers she uses.

MOHA!
http://www.myspace.com/themoha

MoHa! – Anders Hana and Morten J. Olsen – represent the milieu for Norwegian noise, inspired by free jazz and hardcore, as well as industrial and metal rock through their musicianship. They take several ideas with their influences as a platform, but somewhere along the way this gets distorted into a fragmented LEGO-monster of pure energy. However, these blasts of sonic energy are often contrasted with quiet and introverted parts, adding an eerie sensation where you can’t quite say why you miss the energetic parts when it’s quiet and the quiet parts when it’s energetic.

PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED (NORWEGIAN ARTISTS):
BJØRN TORSKE
PUT YOUR HANDS UP FOR NEO-TOKYO
BAERTUR
MATTIS WITH
MARTIN ANDAL

See our archive for more information on the artists + links, sound, video etc.