Sven-Åke Johansson

More early-1970s free music from the MND circle, taped mostly at Hamburg's Fabrik: Sven-Åke Johansson, Norbert Eisbrenner and cellist Peter Dyck with guests, on a double LP that follows Freedom Suite.

CD-only compilation of recordings from FMP's 2001 Total Music Meeting in Berlin released by a/l/l in 2002, featuring a.o. George Lewis, Sven-Åke Johansson, Hans Reichel, Carlos Zingaro, Paul Lovens, Axel Dörner, Günter Sommer, Mark Wastell, Simon H. Fell and Rhodri Davies.

Solo percussion by Sven-Åke Johansson, recorded at his SÅJ Studio in Berlin in March 2010: fifteen short pieces named after Swedish surnames, rolls, cymbals and a towel flicking on the drum skin.

Percussionists Burkhard Beins and Sven-Åke Johansson with harpist Rhodri Davies, recorded at Sowieso in Berlin in 2013 and 2015: acoustic sounds that come close to electronics, plus a harp solo by Davies.

Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano and Sven-Åke Johansson on voice, accordion and drums, live at Onkel Pö in Hamburg in March 1978: a free improvised take on the German Lied, recorded by NDR.

Berlin trio improvisation recorded in June 2015 by Liz Allbee on trumpet and seashell, Annette Krebs on electric guitar and electronics and Sven-Åke Johansson on percussion, with notes by Thomas Millroth.

On Die Dritte Ebene, Emilio Gordoa and Sven‑Åke Johansson let vibraphone, drums and accordion run in seemingly parallel lines until a mysterious “third layer” appears - a ghost‑music of overtones, pulse and texture that neither player could summon alone.

Very rare 1972 edition on FMP (with ”Mierendorffstrasse 19” address printed on the back cover) of one of the monuments of European free music by the Octet featuring Peter Kowald, Han Bennink, Sven-Åke Johansson, Fred Van Hove and Evan Parker a.o.. Music has rarely been as wild, energic and free as here.

Very rare 1972 edition on FMP (with ”Mierendorffstrasse 19” address printed on the back cover) of one of the monuments of European free music by the Octet featuring Peter Kowald, Han Bennink, Sven-Åke Johansson, Fred Van Hove and Evan Parker a.o.. Music has rarely been as wild, energic and free as here.

Drummer, visual artist and one of the original European free jazz players, Sven-Åke Johansson was never willing to settle for a single route of exploration. As a musician and composer he appeared on key recordings for the legendary FMP, delivered marine weather reports for Edition Telemark, crooned love songs for Ultra Eczema and was at the heart of the recent free music revival in Berlin via Umlaut alongside Joel Grip and Axel Dörner. “My work is not actually jazz, but rather the exploration of…

Very rare first album on FMP's SAJ series from 1972, with silk-screened folded cover and innersleeve, and Johansson's uncompromising first solo album.

"If you think that the constellation of Nicholas Bussmann, Sven-Åke Johansson and Yan Jun is a sort of dream lineup, you are not far off the mark. The joint improvisations that you hear on tea time capture a sound that once came to Bussmann in a dream and that he made a reality with the help of his fellow musicians. The trio recorded the five pieces across two days at Johansson’s SÅJ studio with engineer Andrew Levine, working with Bussmann’s curious piano robot while Johansson was on percussion…

2012 release (RARE - light storage wear)  ** "E.M.T. started focusing on ecstatically free improvisation in an explosive and expressive manner. Over the years E.M.T. gradually extended their musical language by incorporating dada like spoken words and improvised recitations inspired by Schönberg (Pierrot Lunaire), noise, improvised structures and composition fragments from European composers like Grieg, Schumann (the song Ich grolle nicht) a.o. Alfred Harth extended his instruments to electric z…

For over half a century, Sven Åke Johansson and Rüdiger Carl have explored the boundaries of music together. Villa Hügel captures a rare moment: a concert with no audience, recorded in 2020 in the library of Villa Hügel during the 2 x Kippenberger exhibition. The few present could only experience it  in-house via TV transmission. Carl on accordion, Johansson on percussion, cardboard, and crackle box—an interplay of structure and openness, sound and silence. This release follows Johansson’s exhib…

**200 copies, of which only 100 are available for distribution** A previously unreleased recording of Sven-Åke Johansson playing a solo set at the legendary Petersen Galerie in West Berlin, 1982. The concert took place inside an exhibition of drawings by Tomas Schmit and runs the gamut from Johansson's trademark Schlingerland-style drumming to accordion sabre dance and absurdist poetry. The gallery, owned by Jes Petersen, hosted Fluxus, Actionist, Art Brut and Surrealist exhibitions and performa…

*110 copies limited edition* Everyone knows Swedish free jazz legend Sven-Åke Johansson kills it on the dancefloor, making Michael Jackson look petite in his three piece suit and killer moves! Nobody flips a cymbal with more style and patience than Sven-Åke! Whether it's a carboard cymbal, a rumbling tractor, Kippenberger's events, a brassband, a fire extinguisher or a lead pipe, anything turns into a stylish instrument in his hands.We've heard him croon before as well, though never as sugary as…

Rotations+ is a trio project of Sven-Ake Johansson with German turntablist Ignaz Schick and Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger recorded live at the beloved Berlin experimental venue KM28 in September of 2023. The collective improvisations are instilled with a deep interest in color and timbre, and each track offers a fresh perspective. While Johansson toggles to accordion on the album’s final track, squeezing tender lines alongside Hautzinger’s moody brass and Schick’s scratch-pocked layer of w…

Mega tip! Even within the sprawling oeuvres of Sven-Åke Johansson and Alexander von Schlippenbach, both known for their innovative rethinking and broadening of artistic categories, the dramatic work "... über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel" ("... on cause and effect of the disagreements during the building of the Tower of Babel") remains a unique and rare enigma: What is it actually? Johansson has alternately called it a music drama, an opera, and a sings…

Rüdiger Carl and Sven-Åke Johansson are two fellow travelers on the path of experimental music who have worked together since the late 1960s in many formations, most notably as the wild-card Fluxus pranksters on Peter Brötzmann’s legendary 1969 recording Machine Gun, and on many more recordings and stagings of sonic interventions over the decades.  In the words of Peter Margasak writing in the Chicago Reader in 2012: “Where to begin with percussionist and polymath Sven-Åke Johansson: Is he a beb…

* 75 copies limited edition * In times of vinyl shortage and production backlog, resourcefulness is key. In keeping with his well-established practice of replacing original materials with surrogates to generate new sonic experiences, Sven-Åke Johansson has devised a digital reinterpretation of the historic flexidisc in the shape of a 10inch rubber disc with engraved QR codes that let buyers access the music online. About the music: "The six compositions titled ‘stumps’ are based on a potential f…

Tip! Black Truffle announce a major archival discovery from the wildest outer fringes of the FMP universe, the Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett's Live '82. The Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett (BBQ) was formed in 1980 in Rostock, East Germany, when three of the most radical and riotous members of the West German free music scene -- reedist/accordionist Rüdiger Carl, percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson, and Hans Reichel on violin and his modified "strange guitars" -- first played as a quartet …

**Limited to 100 copies** "Evidence hints at the event. Parts of broken drumsticks, a sound recording, a photograph and a written approach. Traces, relics. The work „Safe Crash“ by visual artist Florian Bräunlich consists of porcelain drumsticks, plastic buckets, a wooden platform, varnish, cymbals, cymbal stands, a floor tom and a spotlight on which the second release of „dispari“ is based.A sound recording witnesses Sven-Åke Johansson’s performance of Florian Bräunlich’s “Safe Crash” at HFBK, …

Rhythm Ace & Slingerland, a co-production by Ni Vu Ni Connu and Galerie Max Hetzler, is one of numerous collaborations between longstanding friends Oehlen and Johansson, following from their 2003 album Shotgun Wedding, also featuring Mayo Thompson of Red Krayola. This album explores how art infuences music and vice versa – a question often explored in Oehlen’s work. The idea originated from Johansson’s visit to the artist’s studio in 2018. Oehlen showed the drummer his collection of rhythm machi…

An evening of free improvisation recorded in Berlin at au Topsi Pohl in 2020 from the Swedish trio of Euro Free Jazz legend Sven-Ake Johansson on drums, Niklas Fite on acoustic guitar and Joel Grip on double bass, performing two extended and dynamic improvisations, and then settling into jazz standard form for "Isn't It Romantic" and "Out of Nowhere" sung by by Johansson. The novelty and warmth of the songs aside, the serious work heard in Sets 1 & 2 of shows the trio in fine form, evolving thei…

Two historical heavyweights of European free music, clarinetist Rüdiger Carl and drummer Sven-Åke Johansson, join forces with younger bassist Joel Grip for a night of incredible trios.  Recorded a few months before the pandemic clampdown, in November of 2019, at Berlin's Au Topsi Pohl, the music is exploratory and swinging, with Carl's viscous clarinet and a brilliant rhythm team steeped in time-based feel but loose and sometimes oblique.  Johansson was part of the first Peter Brötzmann Trio to …

**Edition of 300** "Night Music" unearthes Sven-Åke Johansson's very first recordings from 1964 – made with his Tandberg tape recorder in the Kronenburg Bar, a dive bar in the red-light district in Münster/Westfalen (West Germany). There he performed jazz versions of popular songs and standards with Uwe Wegner (piano) and Gerold Flasse (double bass), sometimes joined by Dutch singer Jenny Gordee. Young Udo Lindenberg was a frequent guest at the Kronenburg Bar.  Side A of the LP features 7 songs …

* 2020 Stock * 1000 people watching a tractor concert in southern Sweden is only one event documented in this magnificently designed book. "Automatism of the Rotation" presents several of Sven-Ake Johansson pieces of music written for automobiles: crescendo and decrescendo – elements of classical composing – find their way into a world of familiar sounds presented in a new light. Honking signals from cars, the sound of Harley Davidsons, windwheels and other sources of sound are being interpreted…

Rüdiger Carl: accordion, clarinet; Sven-Åke Johansson: accordion, drums and voice. "Recorded 1997 at the book and record store Andra Böcker och Skivor in Stockholm. This CD featuring two of the most innovative improvisors in Europe is the first released recording of the duo since 1985. Carl and Johansson's music isn't tied to any genre, but instead flows freely over both known and unknown territories, in it's own unique way. Sound-wise, the CD has a special focus: every track on Djungelmusik med…

Blue for a Moment retraces the artistic career of the Berlin-based Swedish jazz musician, avant-garde composer, poet and visual artist Sven-Åke Johansson, one of the most singular and exciting figures in European improvised music. Johansson (born 1943 in Mariestad) moved to Berlin in the late 1960s, where he has since been active in a variety of music and artistic contexts. His first performances took place in the context of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab on Hallesches Ufer, where young musicians and …

Marine weather reports recorded from radio broadcasts by Sven-Åke Johansson in 1970 at the Kollektiv für Kommunikative und Ästhetische Forschung in Mariental, Lower Saxony, Germany. Edition of 300 with printed inner sleeve containing liner notes by Thomas Millroth about forms of artistic appropriation in Johansson's work.

**300 copies** The Kollektiv für Kommunikative und Ästhetische Forschung was an artist commune that existed for about two years around 1970 in a former monastery in Mariental (Lower Saxony), West Germany, close to the then inner-German border. It was founded by members of the West Berlin free art and music scene, many of them having been part of the scene based around the short-lived Zodiak Free Arts Lab. Among the residents were drummer Sven-Åke Johansson, guitarist Norbert Eisbrenner and bassi…

In February 2020, Sven-Åke Johansson and Thomas Kapielski released the vinyl LP Recovered under their project name Das Moabiter Duo at Fantôme Verlag. It was published on the occasion of a joint exhibition by Johansson and Kapielski at the Laura Mars Gallery, Berlin.Recovered, mixed and mastered by Frieder Butzmann, features a previously unreleased concert recording from 1983. Joint performances by Kapielski and Johansson took place in clubs like the Korrekt (Alt-Moabit, Berlin) or ‒ as part o…

Cien Fuegos present a reissue of Sven-Åke Johansson's Schlingerland / Dynamische Schwingungen, originally released in 1972. Sven-Åke Johansson (Mariestad, Sweden, 1943) works as a composer, drummer, accordionist, poet, and visual artist. Longtime collaborator of the free improv scene in the German '60s with Kowald, Brötzmann, Schlippenbach. He contributed to numerous exhibitions, publications, and recordings. Sven-Åke Johansson - drums. Recorded 1972 in Stockholm, Schweden. Engineered by Göran F…

A meeting of generations! The mighty Johansson paired with British artist Phillips for a collection of songs from... elsewhere. Johansson's unmistakable sensibility filtered through collaboration. Another essential chapter in an unparalleled discography

Jan Jelinek and legendary jazz percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson probe ideas about the “anthropology of drumming” with entrancing results for Luxembourg’s Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu label. A sterling addition to Jelinek’s catalogue of solo releases and experimental collaborations, ‘puls-plus-puls’ finds the German artist properly indulging a formative passion for jazz music alongside one of free-jazz music’s most respected percussionists. Of course, this being Jelinek, the results are craftily complex but un…

solo set recorded at SÅJ Studio in Berlin in 2017 that reconnects with Sven-Åke Johansson’s 1972 seminal first solo record Schlingerland originally released on Fmp, presenting just the man and his drum set, and it's a fascinating listen. "You can hit beats so that they betray an intention – through accentuation or emphasis. Or you can hit them so that they seem mechanical, devoid of intention, a pure pulse, as in much minimalist music. Both possibilities abound in different genres. But there is …

Trost present Schraubenlieder, unreleased songs by Sven-Ake Johansson and Alexander von Schlippenbach from 1988, recorded by Radio DRS Bern. Personnel: Sven-Ake Johansson - vocals; Alexander von Schlippenbach - piano.

Sektion 1-2 is an extravagant LP-production which depicts the new musical thoughts and craftsmanships of three musician identities who couldn’t be further apart (or better distributed) in age. Together they work on the form. The result is a radical suspended shape of instrumental interplay, exploring unbound rhythms, structures, and harmonies. Even though Neuköllner Modelle draws attention to Free Jazz (a genre of which Sven-Ake Johansson became one of the european pioneers), their methods…

Awesome 5xCD box featuring collective releases from the 70s to the recent years by the Swedish legendary pioneer of free jazz and improvised music. Sven-Åke Johansson (Mariestad, Sweden, 1943) is a composer, a drummer, a poet, an author and also a visual artist. Longtime collaborator of the free improv scene back in the German sixties with Peter Kowald and Peter Brötzmann, furthermore with Manfred Schoof, Schlippenbach, Rüdiger Carl and Hans Reichel. He contributed to numerous exhibitions, p…

A unique 3CD-box from Umlaut Records putting in attention the musical collaborations between two of Sweden’s most headstrong musicians: the pioneers Bengt “Frippe” Nordström and Sven-Åke Johansson. The previously non-released music was recorded in Stockholm 1970, 1977 and 1982 and portrait the musicians both in format of a trio, including legendary pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and in a large orchestra led by Johansson including, at the time, young groundbreaking jazz musicians from Swede…