PUNKT | STILLEFELT – MODEST UTOPIAS
First, Punkt refers to the annual Norwegian festival founded by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré – a festival with a distinct concept: ‘live sampling and live remix of music. Continuous creation and collaboration’. It is different from other festivals: for example, all concerts are remixed live: ‘the audience gets to hear the remixes immediately after each concert. In many cases, the remixers also invite musicians to interact with the remixes, making them a vehicle for continuous innovation and improvisation’.
But it doesn’t stop there: since 2022, there’s also Punkt Editions: a label releasing ‘Punkt-related’ music (music that has the same adventurous starting point).
And now, there’s also Punkt referring to a music collective: in this case, the core members Jan Bang and Erik Honoré working with University of Agder music students (performing on vocals, electronics, samples, duduk, guitar). And, as if that wasn’t enough, there’s this collaboration project with British trio Stillefelt (which means ‘quiet field’): Chris Mapp (bass, electronics), Percy Pursglove (trumpet), Thomas Seminar Ford (guitar, electronics).
Like everything related to Punkt – performing just outside your comfort zone as a goal – this collaboration was no standard exchange procedure: ‘Stillefelt’s performances in Birmingham were reimagined and enhanced in the Punkt Studio in Kristiansand before being returned for further creative input by Stillefelt.’
As can be expected in such a setting, this music defies simple categorization. Part of it is (dream-)pop, but there’s also jazz, ambient electronics, and improvisation. But there’s absolutely no predictability. And all of it is presented in a top-notch sound production.
Modest Utopias contains all that Punkt stands for.
JOHN DEREK BISHOP – FLOW
Punkt Editions is a sublabel of the Norwegian label Jazzland Recordings, founded by Bugge Wesseltoft. The name may suggest a jazz label, but that would be too simple: the label is open to all music with an open mind, music with ‘new conceptions’.
As is demonstrated by John Derek Bishop‘s album Flow. Bishop is a Norwegian-American musician and producer from Stavanger, Norway.
Flow is his seventh recording for Jazzland Recordings, this one being ‘his most minimalistic to date’ – a meditative ambient-electronic album inspired by Norwegian nature (and if you ever visited Norway, you know they have a LOT of nature!). Flow presents 11 relatively short tracks that are different but form a coherent album together. Bishop uses electric piano, guitar, piccolo bass, and modular synths (and a trumpet sample on one track), all ‘manipulated to create complex soundscapes combined with field recordings from nature and urban areas’. After finishing recording, the album was remixed in a beer brewing hall ‘to give the album a wider sound and an organic reverb.’
‘A cornerstone in Bishop´s production is the texture and timbre of sound. He searches for sounds that are out of the ordinary and places the listener in different emotional states.’