Thursday, June 09, 2005  

On Friday, June 10, Hakon Kornstad (a saxophonist and small-horse handler from Oslo, Norway) plays with NYC-via-Norway bassist Eivind Opsvik and others at Nublu in New York City. It's a Medium Rare party with DJs and live visuals, then the musicians take the stage at 12:30 a.m. Go to Nublu's site for more details and directions. The Suburbs will likely be there, decked out in a Dale of Norway sweater. Eff the heat, I got style.

Kornstad usually plays in the superfab group called Wibutee, and their Playmachine album was one of my favorite CDs of 2004---and one of the finest examples of jazztronica ever put to hard disk. It ain't easy to make improv-feeling music when you're battling it out with a computer, but Wibutee succeeds in spades.

Due to distribution problems with the Jazzland label, Playmachine never came out in the U.S. First Verve, which was to distribute Jazzland titles in the U.S. in 2003 because both labels are under the Universal umbrella, dropped out when it slashed its roster. More recent, the Concord/Fantasy Records empire, which owns the rights to the old U.S. Jazzland label, threatened to sue the Norwegian Jazzland label over the name.

But Canadian, European, and Japanese readers should be able to find Wibutee's albums in regular ol' record stores, as Jazzland has great distribution---through Universal---in those territories.

Since Playmachine came out there have been a few changes to Wibutee. Cofounder and bassist Per Zanussi left the group to concentrate on his own acoustic-based band, the Zanussi Five. Their self-titled debut CD on Sweden's Moserobie label is a friggin' blast. Three saxes, including the fantastic Kjetil Moster, plus drums and bass = Scan-doe-navian ass kickin'.

Wibutee now consists of drummer Welte Holte, Rune "Sternklang" Brondbo on electronics, bassist and guitarist Tor Egil Kreken, and Hakon Kornstad on saxophones, flutes, and electronics. The quartet is currently recording an EP to be released in the fall that features three new songs along with remixes from Playmachine. You can stream the Sternklang remix of "Playmachine," as well as the Playmachine and Eight Domestic Challenges CDs, at Wibutee's Web site. (The band somewhat distances itself from their debut, Newborn Thing, which features yet another lineup, including a female vocalist.)

Also on Wibutee's site is a free MP3 download of Scanner's remix of "Playmachine."

Plus, there's a video for a live version of Playmachine's "Glor," which comes from a nicely produced DVD called X-Ray Now that the Norwegian government made to promote its jazztronica artists. Yeah, that's right, the Norwegian gov is all down with jass + 'tronics.

And the great videos for Playmachine's "We Are in Space, So Are You" and "Gitlat" are on Wibutee's site as well.

When not doing Wibutee, the hypertalented Kornstad is either graphic designing---among other projects, he designs all his band's album covers, as well as many of the CDs on Jazzland, and even Eivind Opsvik's new disc on Fresh Sound New Talent, Overseas II---or playing in one of his many side projects, including leading a trio under his own name and performing in a duo with pianist Havard Wiik. Kornstad and Wiik have a new CD out on Moserobie called Eight Tunes We Like, which you can listen to parts of at Kornstad.com.

I also understand that in his spare time Kornstad helps old ladies cross the street, adopts stray animals, and gives food to the poor, which he makes in a kitchen he designed himself in order to meet his strict needs as a master chef in the tradition of Emeril and that barbecue guy on PBS.

They call me The Pasty Pimp du Norge.

Wibutee.net
Kornstad.com
Per Zanussi
Eivind Opsvik
Sternklang
Moserobie Records
Jazzland Records
Milk Factory interview with Wibutee
Amsterdam Editions interview with Hakon Kornstad
Two reviews by moi that feature Kjetil Moster on CDs released by the Jazzaway label: here and here

Buy Wibutee's CDs from Dusty Groove
Buy Playmachine and Eight Domestic Challenges from iTunes
Cadence Music Sales for CDs on the Moserobie, Jazzaway, and Fresh Sound labels

Posted by CP | Link |

---