“Re-Make Re-Model” is the result of a five-year dialogue between Norway and New Zealand sound artists Lasse Marhaug and Bruce Russell. What first started as a friendly challenge during the Covid19-lockdown to re-work selected works from each other’s catalogue – using different techniques and experimental approaches, challenging each other to go to extremes – extended to what is now a double-CD and a 100-page book package of writings and photos. Each CDs has eight tracks, a total of 100 minutes of music. The book has extensive notes to each track (often with comments by the corresponding artist). In addition there’s a lengthy essay by Bruce Russell on the project’s origins and the nature of collaboration and noise making; a photo series by Lasse Marhaug; a series of stills by Bruce Russell taken from a video piece; as well as cover artwork and biographical note.

Roughly a month ago, we took the opportunity to sing the praises of 8090 VÅG, the new annual publication by the Norwegian polymath musician, writer, designer, photographer, and publisher Lasse Marhaug. A stunning illumination of his longstanding support for, and many dialogs across, the global context of experimental music. It was an understandably huge success, selling out its edition in a flash. Now, even before the dust has fully settled, Marhaug returns with yet another stunning publication, tapping his expansive practice: Re-Make Re-Model, an incredible limited edition book and double CD, created in close collaboration as a duo, with his longtime friend, the legendary New Zealand born experimental musician and writer Bruce Russell (The Dead C, A Handful of Dust, etc.). Born as a means to bridge the sustained distance imposed upon them by the global pandemic, conceived as a friendly challenge to re-work selected works from each other's catalogue - using a variety of techniques and experimental approaches - the project continued to grow over the years, with the pair challenging each other to go to extremes, culminating as this stunning edition, comprising 16 tracks spread across two CDs that collectively contain more than 100 minutes of radically groundbreaking music, and a 100-page book, gathering extensive notes attending to each track (often with comments by the corresponding artist); a long-form essay by Russell illuminating the project's origins and his considerations around the nature of collaboration and noise making; a photo series by Marhaug; and a series of video stills by Russell, in addition to artwork and biographical notes. Issued by Marhaug's own Marhaug Forlag imprint, while stunning and illuminating on so many sets of creative terms - tapping multiple dimensions of the diverse practices embraced by two of the most important experimental journeymen working today, as well a provocative means through which to re-engage with their respectively deep discographies - like nearly everything Marhaug releases, Re-Make Re-Model doubles as an emblem of the beautiful and deeply generous spirit that percolates across the context to which we all belong. Issued in a highly limited edition of 300 copies, much like 8090 VÅG, and possibly even more so, this one isn't going to sit around for long. Grab a copy while you can!

Since his emergence into the global landscape of experimental sound and music during the early 1990s, Lasse Marhaug has remained one of the context's most radical and ambitious creative voices, spanning the fields of noise, free improvisation, jazz, rock and metal, producing a remarkable catalog of solo work as well as collaborations with Joe McPhee, Paal Nilssen-Love, C. Spencer Yeh, Okkyung Lee, Otomo Yoshihide, Merzbow, Jim O'Rourke, Mats Gustafsson, and a slew of others. Remarkably, Marhaug's efforts don't end there. The years have encountered him working prolifically within the fields of dance, art installations and video art, as well as graphic design, working as an organizer, promoter, and producer, and founding and running numerous labels: TWR Tapes, Jazzassin Records, Pica Disk, and Prisma Records. More recently his efforts as a photographer have begun to enter the broader consciousness and, back in 2011, he took his expansive efforts one step further with the launch of Marhaug Forlag, his own print publishing venture, which has so far yielded the noteworthy periodicals Personal Best and 8090 VÅG. Now, engaging even further dimensions of the multidisciplinary and collaborative practices that have helped define his many years of activity, Marhaug Forlag delivers a stunning new hybrid with Re-Make Re-Model, a genre-busting collaboration between Bruce Russell and himself.

Bruce Russell needs little introduction. His efforts as an experimental musician, writer, and artist are legendary. Initially emerging into the global consciousness during the late 1980s as a founding member of the seminal New Zealand noise outfit, The Dead C, alongside Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats, as well as via his equally noteworthy efforts within Handful of Dust, his free-noise duo with Alastair Galbraith. Over the decades, he has equally gained note for an extensive body of work produced under his own name - both solo and collaborative - that has continuously pushed the boundaries of sonic perception and possibility. Yet, despite his sprawling discography, now spanning more than four decades, Russell's practice - much like that of Lasse Marhaug, his collaborative counterpart on Re-Make Re-Model - is expansive, difficult to nail down, and rooted in the establishment of community-based networks of support and collaboration. In addition to his work as a musician, he has run two important record labels over the years - Corpus Hermeticum and Xpressway, which have served as crucial vehicles for the voices of numerous artists within the experimental music world - and written extensively over the years, on a range of subjects, for publications like The Wire.

Both Marhaug and Russell, viewed from any perspective, have remained, over their many years of activities, incredibly prolific, while retaining a high creative bar, in ways that entirely defy expectation. It's easy to wonder how they find the time in the day to accomplish as much as they do. From this perspective, it's easy to put together why, when the global pandemic ground the world and movement to a temporary stop, found themselves in close dialog, looking for the means to create and push one another. The project that now finds its completed and fully realized form as the 100 minutes of music, housed within a 100-page book of related material, that comprises Re-Make Re-Model, was instigated remotely across the great distance between Norway and New Zealand that separated Marhaug and Russell during the aforementioned period. Conceived as a friendly challenge between the pair, they respectively embarked upon re-working selected works from each other's discographies through a variety of techniques and experimental approaches, challenging each other to go to extremes, resulting in 16 tracks that span the publication's 2xCDs. The outcome - actively blurring notions of explicit authorship - is nearly two hours of blistering noise, ranging from pieces rooted in heavily processed and distorted textural elements, to more minimal works centered around tangibly acoustic sound sources. While covering a fairly diverse range of expressions across the album's length - incorporating a vast range of reference points from across Marhaug and Russell's discographies - highlighting the pair's incredible versatility - there is a distinct sense of unity, both sonically and conceptually, that binds each piece together within a single statement of sonic onslaught.

While the sound component of Re-Make Re-Model is certainly enough to satiate any appetite, true to form, Marhaug and Russell naturally pushed the generous insights provided by the project, alongside the opportunity to engage both of their multidisciplinary practices, to the maximum, housing their 2xCDs of material within a 100-page book, gathering extensive notes attending to each track (often with comments by the corresponding artist); a long-form essay by Russell illuminating the project's origins and his considerations around the nature of collaboration and noise making; a photo series by Marhaug; and a series of video stills by Russell, in addition to artwork and biographical notes, all complemented by Marhaug's brilliant graphic sensibility that we've recently encountered within 8090 VÅG.

If the sonic contents of Re-Make Re-Model are regarded as the primary space of its occupancy, then the textual and images contained by its book pages might be regarded as the multidimensional key that opens the door and offers a means for insight and more fulfilled navigation. This is especially the case with the texts authored by both artists attending to each track that they approached and re-worked of the others, providing a clear sense of the respect and attentiveness that each holds for both the other and the listener, alongside detailed information of the original source for those who might want to engage a comparison with the original version, additionally complemented by the reproduction of the cover art of key albums from which they were sourced. Taking it one step further, Russell provides expanded insights through his well-honed skill as a writer, drawing the reader into the origins of this project as well as his thoughts on collaboration and experimentation, developed over the decades; as well as a text and stills from a short film made during roughly the same period that he and Marhaug embarked upon the Re-Make Re-Model project; as well as a stunning suite of photographs by Marhaug, made while he commuted to his studio from home, to work on the same project. The sum total of this activates an astounding sense of scope surrounding the project, the likes of which are remarkably rare and deeply enriching.

As far as deeply generous gestures that both blur the standing notions of creative boundaries and discipline - pushing toward something close to a total artwork - it's hard to conceptualize it being better done than Lasse Marhaug and Bruce Russell's Re-Make Re-Model. It's a remarkable bit of work. Issued by Marhaug Forlag as a 2xCD / Book, in a highly limited edition of 300 copies, it's definitely one of the most striking immersions for the ears, eyes, and mind that we've seen in some time. Highly recommended and not to be missed. Whether viewed separately or in collaboration, these two are a serious force.