★Sofa
On the silver globe
Sofa is proud to release “On The Silver Globe” – the debut album of the duo of Kim Myhr and Lasse Marhaug. The album originated as a commission from the MetaMorf art biennale in Trondheim for the two musicians to collaborate on a 8-channel piece for the 2016 edition. The morphing of Myhr and Marhaug proved to be a good match, the two had known each other for years but never worked together, and in the process of making “On The Silver Globe” found this collaboration should be more than a one-off.…
Karpatklokke
Henrik Olsson, objects, friction, piezo. Martin Taxt, microtonal tuba, electronics. Håvard Volden, guitar, tape-loop.Muddersten is a type of mudrock whose original constituents were clays. It looks like hardened mud and, depending upon the circumstances under which it was formed, it may show cracks or fissures, like a sun-baked clay deposit. Fertile clay and fat soil, compressed, dried out and turned into stone. Still delicate flowers will find their way through its cracks and fissures, prosper …
Bite of the Orange
Robin Hayward, Microtonal F-tuba. Peder Simonsen, Microtonal C-tuba. Martin Taxt, microtonal C-tuba. Bite of the Orange is Microtub’s third album on SOFA. On ‘Bite of the Orange’ the three tuba players dig deeper into the sphere of just intonation. Robin Hayward has composed two new pieces for the group focusing on the 11th and 13th harmonics, resulting in a strong microtonal character. The canadian music critic Stuart Broomer picked Microtub as one of the highlights of the FIMAV festival inVict…
Le Stanze
It's been 6 years since Ingar Zachs critically acclaimed solo album; M.O.S. (SOFA 532). On his 5th album, Le Stanze, Ingar Zach continues to develop his unique, personal music, also this time with percussion and electronics. The four compositions show an highly original artist who constantly finds new surprising possibilities in the world of percussion. The music is recorded in a small church in Urueña in Spain and in his studio in Madrid. The result is a brilliant refined album which again c…
Advances and Delays
Circadia might be your favorite new experimental psych-impro-folk band. With the stellar line-up of guitarists David Stackenäs and Kim Myhr, bassist Joe Williamson and drummer Tony Buck from The Necks, Circadia releases their debut recording on SOFA in July 2016. While the pared-down acoustic instrumentation may seem to be some kind of “back to basics” tip of the hat to folk styles, the music is much more than that. A tight rhythmic drive coupled with a nuanced concern for timbre, texture and dy…
Silent Night at the Crooked Forest
Ole-Henrik Moe, viola. Kari Ronnekleiv, violin. Sheriffs of Nothingness is a stringduo consisting of two of Norway's most distinguished artists in contemporary music: Ronnekleiv as a performer and Moe mostly as a composer. Moe and Ronnekleiv won the Norwegian Grammy for best contemporary album in 2007, and in 2011 Moe was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Award.Sheriffs of Nothingness interplay is remarkable. They move inside their music like one organism with all kinds of materials and pas…
Melting into foreground
Henrik Munkeby Norstebo, trombone, half clarinet, electronics.Melting into foreground is the second solo album from trombone player Henrik Munkeby Norstebo, and his debut on the SOFA label. The first track is solo trombone. No effects. He is using the whole spectre of his instrument, from pure tones to noise and the barely audible, in an attempt to find the balance between the intuitive and the strictly constructed. About the second part, Henrik says that all the electronic sounds stems from one…
About enough still not to know
Enough still not to know is a 4 CD box set with music by John Tilbury and Keith Rowe, produced by visual artist Kjell Bjørgeengen for an upcoming video installation. The music is improvised, but it is quite evident that the two artists have developed a strong understanding throughout their five-decade long collaboration.
Keith Rowe and John Tilbury are especially known from their work in the Scratch Orchestra and AMM with Cornelius Cardew. Tilbury is also known as one of the foremost interp…
Tempo
*restocked* Tempo is a 3CD box set recorded live during a 4-hour performance at the Rothko Chapel in 2013. Following up on the group's Live at the Rothko Chapel from 2011, this release shows the group expanding into a much longer form. MURAL consists of Australian windplayer Jim Denley, with Norwegians Kim Myhr (guitar) and Ingar Zach (percussion). They first performed in 2007 in Madrid, and have made concerts around the world since. The trio has released two critically acclaimed records.
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Frozen Orchestra (Amsterdam)
The Pitch is a Berlin-based quartet that explores the area between abstract melody and acoustic drone. Since 2009 they have been developing a musical language and a body of work ranging from quartet music to extended, large-scale ensemble pieces involving guest musicians and further conceptual elements. Improvisation is an important element in their music and it is used as a generative device within specific shapes, structures, and ideas for different pieces of music. Their piece Frozen Orchestr…
Star System
The 3-dimensional graphic scores used on the album "Star System" are subsets of the Robin Hayward Tuning Vine, which arose out of a desire to visualise the harmonic space implicit within the microtonal tuba. Each of the balls represent pitches, and the struts between them musical intervals. In "Star System" (side A), the musicians orbit once around the star-like structure, revealing the harmonic space implicit within it. In " Square Dance" (side B), the various squares and rectangles within…
A winter's night at the crooked forest
Kari Rønnekleiv, violin. Ole-Henrik Moe, viola. In 2011 Rønnekleiv/Moe released the album “A summer’s night at the crooked forest” on SOFA. The London based music magazine WIRE wrote that the album is a technical tour de force. And a musical one, too, each track structured with composerly precision. On this sequel we meet an extraordinary duo with an almost telepatic interplay. Recorded in the middle of the forest in a cabin with no electricity (the recording equipment was run on solar en…
The unknown knowns
Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, alto saxophone & clarinet. Tor Haugerud, drums & percussion. Kim Myhr, guitars & objects. Martin Taxt, tuba. Muringa navigates playfully in a polarized world of opposites. Between speed and tranquility, industry and flora, violence and tenderness, noise and silence, chaos and order; Muringa gives the listener the hegelian third choice. The group consists of four of the most active improvising musicians from Norway. All occupied with other SOFA-projects such as Mural…
Microtub
A wonderful microtonal play.In microtub, ideas of microtonal tuba music are put into action by the three improvisors Robin Hayward, Martin Taxt and Kristoffer Lo. A unique timbre is created when the sound of the three tubas merge together. SOFA is proud to present this groundbreaking piece of music. Robin Hayward developed the first fully microtonal tuba together with the tuba manufacturer B&S in 2009. After exploring the possibilities in just intonation on the regular tuba, he found it necessa…
Invisible
A new series designed by Clare Cooper. Xavier Charles is an active clarinetist in the world of improvised music, known from a variety of constellations and ensembles like Dans les arbres and Contest of Pleasures. This is his first solo release for Sofa. Listening and perception are important elements in Invisible, which consists of both solo clarinet and field recordings. A total openness to moment and utterance characterizes his sound explorations, where we in a poetic fashion, are led to a pla…
M.O.S.
'A new series designed by Clare Cooper. M.O.S. is Ingar Zach's second solo release for Sofa, six years after the critically acclaimed 'Percussion music'. M.O.S. reveals a large and almost monolithic sound world. Zach's horizontal bassdrum (gran cassa) functions as a gigantic, resonating membrane, where metallic and ceramic percussions create articulations over the bass vibrations in a ritualistic dance of pulses and overtones. The music moves slowly, but with a continuing drive, and stretc…
Selektiv hogst
Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar), Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board), Espen Reinertsen (saxophone & flute), Eivind L¿nning (trumpet), Martin Taxt (tuba). Selektiv hogst, meaning selection cutting, is a continuation of the music developed on the album Varianter av d¿de trær, released on SOFA in 2008. Since then, the quartet has performed numerous concerts in Japan and Europe, finding a particular way of making music together. 'Selektiv hogst' sees the former quartet of Tetuzi Akiyama, Marti…
Nectars Of Emergence
Nectars of emergence is the exciting debut release of Mural, consisting of Australia's foremost improviser Jim Denley (alto saxophone, flutes) with Norwegians Kim Myhr (acoustic guitars, preparations) and Ingar Zach gran cassa, percussion). The trio has performed numerous concerts together since their first concert in Madrid in 2007, and now you can finally hear the music on CD. Aftenposten, Norway said of Kim Myhr and Jim Denley's duo CD: 'Systems realignment helps to save improvised musi…
No Longer Burning
This is the long awaited debut release of Streifenjunko. “No Longer Burning” presents the two Norwegians Espen Reinertsen (saxophone) and Eivind Lønning (trumpet) in 9 extraordinary pieces. Both musicians have background from all kinds of collaborations in jazz, rock and more contemporary projects such as Trondheim Jazzorkester, Christian Wallumrød Ensemble (Eivind), and the recent release: “Varianter av døde trær” with Tetuzi Akiyama and Martin Taxt on SOFA. Streifenjunko is/has also collaborat…
Asymmetrical Music
The new cd with Norwegian composer Eivind Buene and his composition, asymmetrical music. This is Sofa first release with a written score, but it doesn't mean that improvisation is abandoned. On the contrary, asymmetrical music focuses on the meeting point between composition and improvisation. The two soloists, Ivar Grydeland guitar and Ingar Zach Ð percussion, are improvising as a duo but also on another level, with the written score. The members of the Ensemble featured on this disc are also v…