New release: FAMLENDE FORSØK: Washing China LP

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Famlende Forsøk: Washing China

Vinyl LP. Released May 2015.

Prisma Records is proud to release the new album “Washing China” by the infamous Norwegian experimental band Famlende Forsøk.

Famlende Forsøk was formed in 1981 and came out of the scene around the cassette label SHiT Tapes from the Arendal area in the south of Norway. The original line-up stands today: the duo of Lumpy Davy and ChrispH creates the music and intergalactic poet Brt provides his vocals with highly idiosyncratic lyrics.

Famlende Forsøk’s music draws influences from several sources – coming out of late 70’s industrial noise/cut-up experimental music they fuse their sound with equal parts psychedelia, progressive rock, free jazz, minimalism, ambient, Norwegian folk and eastern classical music.

In contrast to their contemporaries who churned out releases, Famlende Forsøk are known to take their time – even their early cassettes were meticulous put together with a careful attention to detail. In fact, in their 33 years “Washing China” is Famlende Forsøk’s third LP – following “Art Transmutatoria” from 1990 and “One Night I had a Frightful Dream” (a concept album dedicated to H.P.Lovecraft) from 2001.

In 2009 Famlende Forsøk were invited to perform at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. The band chose to present new material and the concert was recorded. Then followed a period of five years of studio post-production in which the live recording provided the backbone to what is now ready as their new album: “Washing China”. The process of finishing the album was so complex that engineeer and producer Cato Langnes became a new member of the band.

“Washing China” is unmistakenly Famlende Forsøk – layers of acoustic and electronic instruments are carefully waved together creating rich atmospheric and bizarre music of great depth. Brt’s lyrics are in Norwegian, but the album provides extended translations and footnotes in English, providing some guidance into the world of Famlende Forsøk for non-Norwegians.

New release: THURSTON MOORE + MATS GUSTAFSSON: Live at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter LP

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Thurston Moore & Mats Gustafsson: 
Live at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter

Vinyl LP. Released May 2015

Prisma Records are proud to release a limited edition vinyl LP that documents a concert of two giants of the improvised music field.

Thurston Moore’s résumé is monolithic – with his band Sonic Youth and as a solo artist few people has had the same impact on music in the last 35 years. Moore has been instrumental is building bridges between the mainstream and underground experimental music.

Coming out from the jazz scene, Mats Gustafsson holds a similar position, with endless projects, collaborations and three decades of non-stop touring, recording and performing.

The duo have collaborated several times before, starting with Sonic Youth’s participating in Gustafsson’s Hidros project in 2000 and continuing with the Discaholics Anonymous Trio and Original Silence projects. Gustafsson has also guested with Sonic Youth and Moore with The Thing.

On the sunny Sunday afternoon June 9th 2013 the pair performed on Henie Onstad Kunstsenter’s outdoor stage. Not thrown off by the scenic and leisure setting, Gustafsson and Moore dived into a monolithic noise set that was so loud it could be heard across the Sandvikbukta bay. 

The LP is limited to 300 copies.

Arne Nordheim / Deathprod split 7" single out now

ARNE NORDHEIM

A Forum for the Arts (1969)

Taken from the soundtrack to A Forum for the Arts  –  a promotional film about Henie Onstad Kunstsenter directed by Pål Bang-Hansen in 1970. Original material recorded in Studio Eksperymentlne Warsaw, 1969. Edited and reconstructed by Helge Sten at Audio Virus Lab, 2012. Licensed by Rannveig Getz

DEATHPROD

Studio (2010)

Taken from the sound and light installation Studio commissioned for the John Cage – The Anarchy of Silence exhibition at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, 2010. Recorded and produced by Helge Sten.

Cover photo by Lars Mørch Finborud

Art Direction by Lasse Marhaug

Special thanks to Rannveig Getz

Masterd by Helge Sten

Cut by Rinus Hooning at Record Industry

Prisma Records 2014

Available from: http://www.hok.no/arne-nordheimdeathprod-7-singel.5633433-174448.html

New release: ARNE NORDHEIM: Selected Works for Television 1967-1974 [DVD]

Arne Nordheim (1931-2010) is widely regarded as Norway’s best-known composer after Edvard Grieg. But did you know that he was a multidisciplinary artist and that his work inspired several of the country’s greatest visual artists?

Arne Nordheim’s art extends way beyond the confines of music. Throughout his life, he also worked closely with other art forms, such as theatre, fine arts, ballet, film, literature, architecture and installation art. In 1955, a journalist asked the young, up-and-coming composer: “What about the present, the future and -isms?” Arne Nordheim replied confidently: “No -isms for me, please!”

This DVD-release shows how Nordheim’s 50-year long multidisciplinary and ground-breaking career lived up to this motto and established him as a key figure of Norwegian, post-war art. This is the first opportunity to see his pioneering works in the field of television art created in collaboration with Norwegian visual artists such as Per Kleiva and Rolf Aamot, and known NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Bureau) technicians and directors such as Ole Henrik Moe, Stein-Roger Bull and Rolf Clemens. The DVD also includes the hour-long documentary Occupation: Composer, a film about Arne Nordheim made by Istvan Korda Kovacs in 1974.

The DVD accompanies the exhibition Arne Nordheim in the world of arts: No “-isms” for me, please! shown at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter August 22th 2013 – January 12th 2014.

This release is supported by The Freedom of Expression Foundation Oslo and The Norwegian Society of Composers.

New release: CAMILLE NORMENT: Toll CD

Camille Norment - Toll
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Releasedate: September 9th 2013
Distributed through Musikkoperatørene, Forced Exposure, F-Minor, iTunes and Spotify

Camille Norment (b. 1970) is an American born artist, composer and musician living and working in Norway. For her debut album Toll she assembled an ensemble consisting of electric guitar, Norwegian hardingfele, and the rare glass armonica to explore the instruments’ collective sensual  and contextual psychoacoustics. Toll resonates through a tantalizing union of its instruments’ voices and their often paradoxical cultural histories. Each of the instruments were simultaneously revered and feared or even outlawed at various points in their histories.

In a slipstream of warping time and abrasive textures, the music levels ‘beauty’ with ‘noise’, and the consonant with the dissonant, as it embraces scratches, squeals, and taunting microtones as equals to purest of tones. Forming earworms and wooing songs, simple melodic phrases reference one another throughout the tracks - the echo is like the conjuring and re-forming of a memory that is at once psychological and somatic.

Toll was recorded at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Norway during the crystalline resonance of 18-21 February 2013. Besides Camille Norment the album feature the musicians Håvard Skaset and Vegard Vårdal.

The album is released by Henie Onstad Kunstsenters label Prisma Records.

For more info go to www.prismarecords.blogspot.com and www.hok.no

Tracklist:

1. Toll
2. Lyst
3. Glare

Hal Clark-related photos from Henie Onstad Kunstsenter

New release: HAL CLARK: Electro-Acoustic Works 1974–75

Hal Clark – Electro-Acoustic Works 1974-75
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Release date: July 1st 2013
Distributed by Musikkoperatørene
Digital: iTunes, Spotify, Wimp


Composer, sound designer and curator/researcher Harold (Hal) Clark moved to Norway from San Francisco in the early 1970s to carry on his musical studies and career. In 1972 he was hired as a producer and tonmeister at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter at Høvikodden, Norway. Here he co-founded the Norwegian Studio for Electronic Music (NSEM) together with the late composer Arne Nordheim (1931-2010). 
Meeting with young Norwegian composers in regular salon-workshops and bringing with him the influences of the renowned San Francisco Tape Music Centre (studied with Robert Erickson), Harold commissioned technology artist Don Buchla to incorporate his series 502 digital-analog hybrid electronic instrument design into the completion of the NSEM studio in 1974. It was considered one of the foremost advanced instrument inventions at the time. 
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Harold Clark have now collaborated to publish his works from this period as a legacy project. Part of Harold’s electro-acoustic repertoire is exhibited with the release of this CD, capturing the essence of NSEM while revealing some of the composer’s musical character.
Harold Clark left Norway after 10 years and now lives in Vancouver, Canada, where he is writing a book on the ecology of contemporary music composition and the possible extinction of the modern composer as a socially relevant phenomenon in a world of corporate media.Prisma Records and HOK are proud to present this unknown hidden gem in the history of Norwegian and Canadian electronic and avant-garde music.

New release: various "I WANT THE BEATLES TO PLAY AT MY ART CENTER!" [DVD]

Video From the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Archives 1968-2011

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Releasedate October 29, 2012

Artists: John Cage, Kjartan Slettemark, KILLL, Arne Nordheim, Stephen O`Malley, Mauricio Kagel, MoHa!, Christopher Nielsen/Masselys, Stian Skagen & Monica Winther.

This DVD presents seminal works of music, performance, dance, theater and installation art from the nearly 50-year history of Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK). When HOK founder Sonja Henie exclaimed that she wanted the Beatles to play at her art center,  in essence she expressed its founding ambition to produce and stage a lively cross-artistic program that captured the contemporary spirit of the day in live form. This release is filled with previous unreleased material from HOKs history, and shows for the first time Kjartan Slettemark dressed up as a poodle in 1975, Mauricio Kagels commisioned piece EX-POSITION from 1978, and the brilliant recording of John Cage reading Muoyce in 1983.

 "And now we take the first step into the future." Former director Ole Henrik Moe added this bold statement when HOK opened its doors to the public in 1968.  The museum of the future at Høvikodden would position dynamic time-based art alongside its collection of modernist masterworks of paintings and sculpture  ,demonstrating how the various forms art elaborate and collaborate with each other. Instead of expanding its art collection, the majority of HOK’s budget would go to events and exhibitions, to the production of new time-based works, and not least, to document ephemeral art.  

I Want the Beatles to Play at My Art Center! presents a small selction from Henie Onstad Kunstsenters videoarchives. The DVD contains a newly restored version of Pål Bang-Hansens promotional feature A Forum of the Arts from 1969 where amongst others Arne Nordheim performs his commisioned work for HOK Solitaire. For the first time one can see how the Norwegian Studio for Electronic Music looked like in 1975 and view an excerpt from Terje Rypdals opera Orfeus vender seg og ser på Eurydike. In addition the DVD contains more recent productions with artists like MoHa!, KILLL, Stephen O`Malley and Christopher Nielsen/Masselys.

This release accompanies the exhibition I Want the Beatles to Play at My Art Center! – Tidsbasert kunst ved HOK 1968-2011 opening October 28th at HOK with performances by Deathprod and Nils Bech. In relation the book Mot det totale museum is published by Forlaget Press together with a 2LP on Prisma Records. The exhibition and releases are curated by Lars Mørch Finborud.

New release: various "I WANT THE BEATLES TO PLAY AT MY ART CENTER!" [2LP]

- Music From the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Archives 1968-2011

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Releasedate October 29, 2012

This 2LP presents seminal works of music from the nearly 50-year history of Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK). When HOK founder Sonja Henie exclaimed that she wanted the Beatles to play at her art center,  in essence she expressed its founding ambition to produce and stage a lively cross-artistic program that captured the contemporary spirit of the day in live form. This release is filled with previous unreleased material recorded at HOK by artists such as Jim O`Rourke, Deathprod, Arne Nordheim, Soft Machine, John Cage and Jenny Hval.

 "And now we take the first step into the future." Former director Ole Henrik Moe added this bold statement when HOK opened its doors to the public in 1968.  The museum of the future at Høvikodden would position dynamic time-based art alongside its collection of modernist masterworks of paintings and sculpture, demonstrating how the various forms art elaborate and collaborate with each other. Instead of expanding its art collection, the majority of HOK’s budget would go to events and exhibitions, to the production of new time-based works, and not least, to document ephemeral art.  

I Want the Beatles to Play at My Art Center! presents a small selection from HOKs vast sound archives. For the first time one can hear excerpts from  Kåre Kolberg and Paal-Helge Haugens commisioned work Rekviem for Janis Joplin from 1972, Håkon Kornstad improvising in 2012, Hal Clark playing the legendary Buchla-synthesizer in The Norwegian Studio for Electronic Music in 1975, and Soft Machine at its prime in 1971 with Robert Wyatt on drums. The LP also contains commisoned works by Jenny Hval, Deathprod, Lasse Marhaug and Jim O`Rourke, all produced by HOK over the last years. Other artists represented on the 2LP are Bjørn Fongaard, The Aller Værste!, Svein Finnerud Trio, Sigurd Berge and Spontaneous Music Ensemble. 

This release accompanies the exhibition I Want the Beatles to Play at My Art Center! – Tidsbasert kunst ved HOK 1968-2011 opening on October 28th at HOK with performances by Deathprod and Nils Bech. In relation to the exhibition the book Mot det totale museum is published by Forlaget Press, together with a DVD on Prisma Records. The exhibition and releases are curated by Lars Mørch Finborud.

Tracklist LP

Side A
1. Arne Nordheim – A Forum of the Arts (1969)
2. Sigurd Berge – Excerpts from Blikk (1970)
3. Bjørn Fongaard - The Space Concerto for Piano and Tape (1971)


Side B
4. Soft Machine – Teeth  (1971)

5. Spontaneous Music Ensemble – Norway (1971)
6. Paal-Helge Haugen & Kåre Kolberg – Excerpts from Requiem for Janis
Joplin (1972)
7. Svein Finnerud Trio – Olga (1974)
8. Hal Clark – The Monkey and Organ Grinder (1975)

Side C
9. The Aller Værste! - Dans til musikken (1980)
10. John Cage – Excerpts from Muoyce (1983)
11. Magne Hegdal – Music for Marcel Duchamp (1983)
12. Lasse Marhaug – Ear Era 7 (2008)
13. Jim O`Rourke - Aunt Esther (2010)


Side D
14. Deathprod - Studio (2010)
15. Håkon Kornstad – Improvisations for Karin (2011) 

16. Jenny Hval – You sign your name (2012)

New release: OREN AMBARCHI / JAMES RUSHFORD: Wreckage [LP]

Wreckage presents a collaborative work jointly composed by Oren Ambarchi and James Rushford (originally commissioned for the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and premiered by Ensemble Neon) for their own instruments (piano and electric guitar) and a small chamber ensemble, performed here by an ensemble of leading lights in Melbourne’s experimental and new music communities. Rushford’s piano gently ushers the listener though a series of tonally ambiguous environments, building up unified textures through irregular iterations of small melodic and harmonic units. While the integration of Ambarchi’s spectral processed guitar (which gradually climbs to the foreground as the piece progresses) with the acoustic instrumentation recalls the late works of Luigi Nono, and the way the timbral lushness of the chamber group is tempered by never resolved harmonic tension seems to draw on Feldman’s work of the early 1970s, Wreckage also gestures towards the melancholic, intuitive minimalism of Luciano Cilio and Giusto Pio and the wandering melodicism of Aldo Clementi. The lushness of the instrumental textures employed and hints of almost-direct melodicism ensure the piece is approachable and immersive; but the ever-shifting harmonic foundations and complex interplay between voices ensures that it remains somewhere beyond the listener’s grasp, in a paradoxical state of simultaneous movement and stasis.

Limited edition of 400 copies.

New release: VAR. ARTISTS: POPOFONI [2LP]

This 2LP is a reissue of the holy grail of Norwegian free-jazz and electronic music, Popofoni, released by Sonet in 1973. It features compositions by Arne Nordheim, Terje Rypdal, Kåre Kolberg, Gunnar Sønstevold and Alfred Janson played by an extended Jan Garbarek Quintet. 

The Popofoni-project was initiated after a heated debate on Haagen Ringnes’ TV-show Åpen Post in autumn 1969, which dealt with the subject popmusic. Standing on one side you found the defenders of pop, actress and singer Elisabeth Grannemann, comedian and record producer Rolv Wesenlund and artist and record label owner Arne Bendiksen – who defended his 1969 Eurovision winner Oj oj oj så glad jeg skal bli. In the other corner was the “cultural elite” represented by literature researcher Erling Nielsen and pianist and Beethoven-expert Amalie Christie. Both sides expressed grave concerns about that their opponent’s music impaired their listeners abilities. During the broadcast, Grannemann performed a parody of an avant garde-composition which included throwing dishes and yelling, with direct reference to composer Arne Nordheims music. Some weeks later Nordheim picked up the handkerchief and responded by composing a pop song with avant garde qualities, Solar Plexus, performed by an expanded Jan Garbarek Quartet. Because of the great media attention this quarrel attracted, the organization Ny Musikk (IRCM) and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter decided to ask the experimental composers Kåre Kolberg, Alfred Janson, Gunnar Sønstevold, Terje Rypdal and Arne Nordheim to write new compositions in the meeting point be- tween pop and avant garde – hence the name Popofoni. 

The result was performed at a concert at the art centre in april 1970 and later documented on a double LP release on Sonet in 1973. It was pressed in 500 copies, and is now one of Norway’s rarest records.

This reissue is produced by Lars Mørch Finborud and Lasse Marhaug for Prisma Records, 2012. The release comes in a limited edition of 500 copies,