Apr 24, 2017
Nakama (feat. Agnes Hvizdalek) public recording session
Sunday, [30.04.17]
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- 20:00 @amann studio
- live stream from 2o:15
- admission 10.-/8.-
[/timed]
Nakama
Agnes Hvizdalek – vocals
Adrian Løseth Waade – violin
Ayumi Tanaka – piano
Andreas Wildhagen – drums
Christian Meaas Svendsen – bass, compositions
photo by Jenny Berger Myhre
Nakama
A five-piece band led by Norwegian bass player Christian Meaas Svendsen. Nakama is Japanese and can be translated as «comrade», or simply a community of people where no one is above the other. The group was founded as a quartet in 2015 but expanded to quintet late 2016. The music draws influences from European jazz, early American contemporary music, Japanese traditional music and the harmonies of the romantic classical era. Furthermore the music intimately explores the relation between content and non-content, and the possibilities of working with composed forms on a fixed musical material.
«Bold and fascinating… One of the most interesting working bands of today»
— Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts, 16.12.2015
«Surprisingly and quite against the odds I find this music to be very communicative and engaging, which for
this type of music is very rare.»
— Adam Baruch, 31.05.2016
«The quartet sounds just as comfortable with extremes of avant-garde dissonance as they do with
gorgeous melodicism. Compelling stuff, both as a cerebral exercise and as a listening experience.»
— Dave Summers, Bandcamp Top 30, January 201
Agnes Hvizdalek
Agnes Hvizdalek is an improvising musician with her voice as her main instrument. She originates from Vienna’s experimental music scene and has been based in Oslo since 2008. She has become internationally known for her abstract vocal music that celebrates her fascination for yet undiscovered vocal sounds that oscillate between fragility and levity. Always exploring new horizons, Hvizdalek has engaged in numerous cross-disciplinary collaborations merging voice and visual/performance art, dance, theatre, film, writing.
Christian Meaas Svendsen
Christian is the founder of Nakama Records and the leader of the band Nakama. He is also known from groups such as Mopti, Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit and Duplex. Christian is aiming towards becoming a distinctive yet flexible musician, and is working on finding ways to approach musical material through new ways of improvising. Although he is a firm believer that any creative output stands strong on its own terms, he also feels that music is a powerful tool to make a change in this world. His ambition is to connect the classical, contemporary and the free, rhythmic music tradition, and reach beyond the various imaginative borders created by human society and modern culture.
www.christianmeaassvendsen.com
Adrian Løseth Waade
Adrian is a violinist/composer known from groups such as Skadedyr, Trondheim Jazz-Orchestra and the Swedish/Norwegian quartet Bone Machine. Adrian is looking to develop the violin as a tool for both free and structured improvisation, and create frameworks in order to make the instrument sound in new, interesting ways. He incorporates both old and new, rhythmic and classical music in his work.
Ayumi Tanaka
Ayumi Tanaka is a Japanese pianist, composer and improviser living in Norway. She leads her own trio together with drummer Per Oddvar Johansen and fellow Nakama-member Christian Meaas Svendsen on bass. Her curiosity about the possibilities of combining ideas from different styles of music and thoughts make her music unique and fresh in an organic way. Attracted by the communicative powers of music, her motivation for creating music is to open the listener’s heart, and create a space which is free from ethnicity, culture and history.
Andreas Wildhagen
Andreas can be summed up as an open-minded and flexible musician. The projects he is involved with display a wide range of musical and dynamic output: Intricate improvisations with Lana trio, extreme bursts of energy in Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit or beat oriented modern jazz with Mopti and Bendik Baksaas. To Andreas, diversity has never been a goal in itself, however the urge to explore new areas of music has always been there. Because creativity and intuition is always flowing and moving, never stopping in one place, it is the same way with the music he plays.
