Kristin Amarie’s, NOTES FROM A JOURNEY (2013), was her very first studio album, but rose to the top of The Independent Music Awards, where she was awarded Best New Age album, from a jury of judges around the world. NOTES FROM A JOURNEY, also marked the first collaboration, heard here on Kristin’s composition, WITHOUT YOU, between her and the iconic pianist, David Lanz. This was the beginning of an intimate and intense coming together of two world class artists, whose musical highlights are showcased within.

Following their acclaimed collaboration in Percy Graingers Folk Music, soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn turn to the Lyric Music of Edvard Grieg, an apt sequel as the elder composer befriended Grainger- who idolized the Norwegians folkloric idiom- immediately on their first encounter in London in 1906. Interspersing intimate vocal miniatures with lyrical solo piano pieces, Claire and Christopher mirror many of the programmes that Grieg and his wife Nina performed on their many recital tours together. Each of the works on Lyric Music tells a story as does the album as a whole ranging in mood from bright, youthful innocence to shades of autumnal twilight. Sung in the original Norwegian, Claires and Christophers performances are as evocative as Norways varied landscape.

This CD-release is based on original analogue master tapes and digital files from Nasjonalbiblioteket. Recorded in 1976 at. Arne Bendiksen Studio, Oslo, Norway. Originally released on LP in 1977 (Zarepta/Sonet, SLP 1437). Released by permission of Universal Music AS. Arild Andersen oppdaget trommetalentet Pål Thowsen i 1970, som 15-åring. Thowsen tok raskt steget opp i eliteserien og i 1976 fikk han anledning til å lage plate med tre av sine aller største helter: Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen og Terje Rypdal. Å lage egen plate sammen med sitt store trommeforbilde, Jon Christensen var stort for unge Thowsen. I 1976 inntok de Arne Bendiksen Studio i Oslo - begge trommeslagerne med hodet på skakke - Christensen fordi han hører dårlig på det ene øret, Thowsen fordi han trodde det skulle være slik når Christensen gjorde det - og knappe 40 minutter med høyst original musikk blei skapt. Bortsett fra tittellåta, som er skrevet av Club 7-veteranen Webster Lewis, er all musikken her unnfanget av de involverte. Musikken er ganske så løs, sjøl om den er både groovete og tildels riffbasert.

From the deep woods now emerges Birna, Wardruna’s sixth studio album.
Through his never resting dialogue with nature, main composer Einar Selvik has been searching for the voice of the bear. Birna - the she-bear in Old Norse - is a work of art dedicated to the warden of the forest, nature’s caretaker, and her battles here on earth. Slowly driven out of her habitat by modern day societies, she has entered a stage of permanent hibernation. As a result, the forest is gradually dying, longing for its pulse and heart - its shepherd. Birna calls for her return.

Ketil Bjørnstad made his book debut at the age of 20 and released his first record at the age of 21. In those years, he has published a staggering 53 (!) books and 73 (!!) albums, of which a dozen are double and triple albums. In 2022, Ketil Bjørnstad turned 70 and it is celebrated with a box of everything he did in the 70s. Absolutely everything.

Actionfredag is releasing their second album on November 8th! "Lys Fremtid I Mørke" is a life-affirming prog salute inspired by British brick buildings, Sundborn paintings, and vintage Norwegian children's TV. Coinciding with the rerouting of Oslo's buses, the album brings 10 fresh tracks, still defiantly in the major key, maintaining their Swedophile and Canterbury-esque sound, while taking a nostalgic step closer to the band's childhood stomping grounds in East Oslo.
This is a wonderful album that glides along sometimes pithy, sometimes dreamy, sometimes jazzy-intricate, sometimes anthemic-jubilant, sometimes playful-dancing, very varied, yet compact and to the point. By the way, the title of the album is very apt; all in all, this very optimistic and positive music actually seems like a bright spot of light in a rather dark time.

Who is Nipe Nyrén, why is this so good and why haven’t you and I heard of him?
This is teriffic electric jazz, with a similar groove at times to Terje Rypdal’s Odyssey! Never before released, this comes from the original, professionally recorded tapes! Recommended! "Nipe Nyrén, or Nils Petter Nyrén, is a well-known name in jazz and rock circles. In 1976 he formed his own group, which had its breakthrough at the jazz festivals in Molde and Kongsberg. The new group consists of Nipe Nyrén, acoustic and electric guitar, Finn Sletten, drums, Håkon Graf, synthesizer and grand piano, and Terje Venaas, electric bass. After some time at sea, he trained as a chemist, while at the same time joining the capital's young jazz and blues scene. As a widely used studio musician, he can be found on the debut album of artists such as Finn Kalvik, Per Elvis Granberg, Øystein Sunde, Alf Cranner, Ketil Bjørnstad, Laila Dalseth, Ole Paus, Sigmund Groven, to name a few. He participated in The Country Team, the Club 7 band, in Kjell Karlsen's orchestra, in Einar Schanke's band, Geir Wentzel band, in the Radiostorbandet, he played with Earl Wilson/Paul Weeden, and had his own quartet at Kongsberg Jazzfestival and Moldejazz (1976) . It is the concert at Kongsberg this year that we will now release in connection with Kongsberg's 60th anniversary."

Painter, graphic artist, but not least jazz pianist Svein Finnerud released the iconic album Plastic Sun in 1970 together with bassist Bjørnar Andresen and drummer Espen Rud. At the time, the Finnerud Trio was an important part of the Norwegian avant-garde jazz scene. They were not internationally known, but the ideas they represented would later become a trend-setting figure in European jazz with artists such as Garbarek, Rypdal and the "ECM sound". In 1971, they played two concerts during the Kongsberg Jazz Festival. One at the Byscenene and one in the cinema. The concert at the cinema is completely unique, as Finnerud plays both electric piano and acoustic piano at the same concert. With the blessing of his son Bendik Finnerud and Espen Rud, this album can now be made available on CD. The album contains compositions by Anette Peacock/Paul Bley and Keith Jarrett, in addition to his own songs.

With their warm, inviting take on downbeat, Norwegian duo Röyksopp survived the electronica boom of the early 2000s to become one of the most enduring electronic acts of their time. On early tracks like "Eple" and "Poor Leno," and their 2001 breakthrough debut Melody A.M., they blended house, R&B, and the atmospheres of IDM into more traditional downbeat sounds, and their use of multiple guest vocalists further added to their versatility.

Musical messages from Oslo, New York, Basel and Lugano – recorded between 2018 and 2022 - are juxtaposed and recombined on an absorbing recording that features Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen solo and in a series of duets . With such partners as Craig Taborn, Chris Potter, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy, the musical frame of reference is very broad. Elements from Langeland’s’s archaic-sounding folk to Potter’s post-Coltrane saxophone and Taborn’s whirlwind modernist piano each find their place in a project that implies new threads of connectivity, new creative relationships. The album was completed and mixed by Strønen and producer Manfred Eicher at Bavaria Musikstudios in Munich in February 2023.

Salmer på pøbb ble til etter en telefonsamtale mellom Lewi Bergrud og Thor-Erik Fjellvang. Thor-Erik ønsket å gjøre noe musikalsk som hadde en høyere himmel over seg og det viste seg at Lewi hadde gått svanger med grovskissene til et salmekonsept i flere år. En idé om å bringe salmeskatten ut til menigmann på barscenene. Begge var samstemte i å gi konseptet et forsøk. Salmer på pøbb har tatt landet med storm og truffet en nerve i det norske musikklandskapet. Med noen av Norges beste musikere blir salmene endevendt, ristet på og sendt ut i nye lydbilder i tolkningene vi aldri har hørt før.

Actionfredag is a collaboration between members of several Norwegian bands with guest contributions from members of other Norwegian progressive acts, altogether encompassing musicians from Tusmørke, Jordsjø, Panzerpappa, Lupa, Meer, the Maria Orieta Band and the Chronicles Of Father Robin.
The music that comes out is something sublime, very refined, but not only of Canterbury style, but also beautiful symphonic passages typical of prog groups of those latitudes, see Anglagard, Anekdoten etc. A typically analog vintage instrumentation, in short, a rich and varied instrumentation that also includes violin, clarinet, flute, sax, harp, etc. which gives that classical air to Debussy and Satie, also very reminiscent of one of the best French bands of the genre such as Terpandre and also the English Enid, listen carefully because it is precisely for refined palates.

If ever there was a baritone voice made for this music, Bo Skovhus’s is it…Except for the Lange-Müller and Malling items here making their debut on disc, most of the songs on this CD have been recorded before, but mainly in mixed programs, and not, in my opinion, as consistently well sung and beautifully played as they are on this Chandos release. Bo Skovhus is phenomenal, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Michael Schønwandt is equally magnificent. This is a must-have CD.

The seventies were a magical decade for anyone interested in music that tested and pushed boundaries - the cross-pollination between the rhythmic music originating in the culture of the enslaved and currents from Asia, Africa and the Middle East created exciting results with microtonality, new instruments and unusual scales - some rock bands played with a symphony orchestra, others with saws. The most ambitious stretched the elastic so far that it almost broke… and occasionally it did. Jazz was unfaithful with rock, rock with folk music, pop with contemporary music, everyone was curious about the French gypsy jazz.

Norway's most famous composer, Edvard Grieg was one of the late Romantics whose music was infused with the folk tradition of his homeland. He dedicated his career to the pursuit of a national sound. The respect he had for his predecessors illustrates the sincerity with which he worked towards this goal. He wrote in the Romantic tradition with, in his own words, the determination to "create a national form of music, which could give the Norwegian people an identity." The clear mountain beauty of a Scandinavian landscape can be felt in the pure modal harmonies and sustained transparent textures combined with the warmth of a Schumannesque melodic sensibility. This is especially true of his hundreds of piano miniatures – many based on folk dance rhythms – and his songs.