(Avant-garde / Experimental music / Free improvisation) No Spaghetti Edition - Listen... And Tell Me What It Was - 2001, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The title of this CD presents a sometimes impossible request, even for the seasoned listener of avant-garde free improvisation. Debate continues to rage amongst participants and fans of this genre over whether it is better to listen to the music on recordings and remain ignorant about who is doing what, or whether the live experience with its accompanying visual revelations is the way to go. In the case of a large-size improvising group, working mostly with their sympathetic ears and not much in the way of arrangements or compositions, it is a major mess for the mind either way. This ensemble retains the same name for its different projects, but switches membership constantly. In this case, we have mostly Norwegian musicians with a few out-of-country guests, including the wild and inspired keyboardist and electronics player Pat Thomas and the fine German trumpeter Axel Dorner. This is not a performance about stars, however. Everyone involved is throwing in ideas, and the result is quickly shifting textures and abrupt reversals of musical philosophy. Bizarre electronic sounds, gulping and beeping saxophones, and the frantic rustling of drums that sounds like someone rummaging around for a tennis racket in a closet are all part of the fun here. No single player gobbles up much space for very long. The session is well-recorded, the right and left placement of double basses a nice touch. This CD certainly should be added to the list of more successful ventures into large group improvising. Arranging the material with a compact disc release in mind surely helped with the process, as any music that wandered off course could be edited. Although there are eight sperate tracks, the music has a sense of flow as if the performances were all part of a single long work. Coming up with the titles for the tracks in this kind of music often lacks even the meaningfulness one might associate with naming the neighborhood clubhouse, but the short "Spaghetti Fingers" certainly does much to describe typical free improv instrumental technique.
-- Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide

Rugged coastlines, lengthy fjords and Jan Garbarek's wimpy saxophone, more-or-less sum up what the average jazz fan knows about Norway. But while the geography hasn't changed over the past three decades, a new generation of improvisers has come to maturity. Their restless experimentation has more in common with the free form breakthroughs of other European and American musicians than the cold, ethereal meandering which have given so-called Nordic jazz the reputation it has.
Case in point is this CD, a biggish band project which links 10 committed Norwegians with British keyboardist Pat Thomas and German trumpeter Axel Dörner for eight instant compositions. Results are impressive, proving once again that these sorts of spontaneous in-the-studio creations aren't limited by geographical boundaries.
Dörner and Thomas, of course, are adept improvisers in this style who have fit into as many different situations as there are countries in the EU. Yet this is more than a showcase for the guest stars. Dividing the 10 locals into two double quintets, the band has massed firepower when it needs it, or can isolate certain individuals for greater or lesser periods of time.
Some locals have already proven their mettle on the world stage. Bassist Tonny Kluften and guitarist Ivar Grydeland recorded with British drummer Tony Oxley; drummer Ingar Zach duetted with British guitarist Derek Bailey and fellow percussionist Paal Nilsen-Love has been a members of a couple of American multi-reedist Ken Vandermark's bands.
At least as impressive, is young accordion virtuoso Frode Haltli, who has formerly made noise playing Norwegian folk and classical music. Designated as partner to voice and electronics manipulator Maja Ratkje in these double quintets, he seems to be all over the tracks with in-your-face glissandos and staccato blasts. Slow moving "Moscowskaja" is probably the most instructive showcase, as Dörner's stretched, muted horn lines are slowly superceded by electric bomps and beeps then meshed with distinctive accordion tones as traditional and modern sounds coexist.
Co-existence as a form of face off turns up on "A country practice," though, as each member of what could be termed the rhythm section moves to the forefront and back again. Building up from, and finally fading into, silence, the 12 minutes in between features such highlights as scratch cymbal sounds followed by what could be a tabletop guitar solo -- courtesy of Øyvind Torvund perhaps? -- and intricate fingerings at the highest part of bass strings -- from Kluften? -- giving way to a bowed passage that introduces an intricate bass and drum duet. Two drum solos -- from two different percussionist perhaps -- are kept apart by Thomas' lunging, atonal keyboard runs. Before the track fades, circular breathing sounds that could be electronically manipulated, and trumpet sighs appear to duke it out. Finally the two reedmen -- Håkon Kornstad, likely on tenor saxophone, and Rolf Erik Nystrøm, probably on alto sax -- create a cutting contest with some raucous reed honks. But what created that deep breathy trombone-like sound that appears before track end?
A real Norwegian smorgasbord, "If mountains could sing" -- at almost 16 minutes the longest track -- gives everyone his or her head. Wigged out Sun Ra referencing extraterrestrial electronics share sonic space with what appears to be a symphony of noise makers blown in unison. Vocalist Ratkje, who earlier on had contributed odd voice interpolations that were midway between Julie Andrews' soprano singing and the sound of an instructor in a language learning tape, sneaks in a couple of vocal lines. Then someone -- perhaps her again -- leeches minute music selections and a plumy announcer's tone into the mix in a way that suggest a radio station's signal coming in and out of focus. Percussion explosions vie with throat singing. Marching bands seem to go off in many directions playing something that sounds very close to "Frerè Jacques" as atonal and standard jazz piano runs each make their appearance.
Any one of these tracks proves the truth in this disc's title. Listeners interested in a so-far-unheralded group of players and a raucous good time program of improvisation should investigate this session. Most of the musicians are unjustly unknown at present, but with luck, many folks will soon know about these fjord freedom sounds.
-- Ken Waxman, Jazz Weekly

«Listen...and tell me what it was (SOFA 506) by the twelve piece ensemble No Spaghetti Edition is a sort of hyper-Sofa experience that has both Nilseen-Love and Zach on drums (and you can tell them apart!), Grydeland on guitar, Pat Thomas on piano and a host of top Norwegian improvisers. The orchestra is a different beast to other improvisation orchestras and achieves a genuinely unified ensemble sound. Rolf Erik Nystrom and Hakon Kornstad’s saxophones only occasionally rise to the surface of a music that is characterised by flowing pointalistic splashes of colour from accordion, female voice and two electric guitars. Surreal recorded extracts appear and the CD is an impressive calling card for the collective vitality of the Norwegian scene.»
-- Philip Clark, Jazz Review

«Who would have thought that Scandinavia would become such a hotbed for free improvisation? Over the last few years, reed player Mats Gustafsson has been instrumental in putting a spotlight on the Swedish scene (which has been going strong, if a bit under-documented for several decades.) Now the Norwegians are starting to get their due. No Spaghetti Edition is a collective group with a revolving ensemble of musicians. This recording captures a tentet of Norwegians, joined by British keyboard and electronics player Pat Thomas and German trumpeter Axel Dörner. On paper, the group breaks down to a sort of double sextet, but the playing here is more akin to Gunter Christman’s Vario projects or the King Ubu Orchestra with dashes of the aggressiveness of early FMP onslaughts. The collective developments move from dense, layered assaults to open spaciousness. These rough-scrabble spontaneous interactions are full of finely detailed textures, heavy doses of extended techniques and swirling skeins of electronic samples, glitches, and skirling sine waves. The strategy is starting to gain a certain cachet in the free improv scene, but the group has put their own spin on things that make these improvisations stand out. The quirky stamp of Frode Haltli’s free-folk accordion and Maja Ratkje’s fractured wordless vocals make an immediate impression. A close listen continues to reveal a group of players who traverse a tension-filled balance between caterwauling, propulsive bluster and shifting free refractions with daring invention. Each of the players weaves their complex lines into collective orchestrations of beguiling intensity and focus. Sometimes it is the thundering percussion of Zach and Nilssen-Love that drive things, other times it is Thomas’ cascading piano, and yet other times it is the chattering swell of pointillistic filigree. Laptop computers are becoming almost as common place as saxophones for certain practitioners of free improvisation. No Spaghetti Edition proves that the two can have a healthy coexistence and chart commanding, fresh ground in the process.»
-- Michael Rosenstein, Cadence

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 25. July 2008, 0:25
No Spaghetti Edition / Listen... And Tell Me What It Was
Used drive : TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182M Adapter: 2 ID: 1
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : No
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=%e" %s -o %d
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 6:20.19 | 0 | 28518
2 | 6:20.19 | 10:31.40 | 28519 | 75883
3 | 16:51.59 | 6:25.72 | 75884 | 104830
4 | 23:17.56 | 15:48.69 | 104831 | 175999
5 | 39:06.50 | 5:59.39 | 176000 | 202963
6 | 45:06.14 | 12:34.52 | 202964 | 259565
7 | 57:40.66 | 1:44.05 | 259566 | 267370
8 | 59:24.71 | 11:17.08 | 267371 | 318153
Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename F:\z\No Spaghetti Edition - Listen... And Tell Me What It Was.wav
Peak level 98.8 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 4CA97771
Copy OK
No errors occurred
AccurateRip summary
Track 1 not present in database
Track 2 not present in database
Track 3 not present in database
Track 4 not present in database
Track 5 not present in database
Track 6 not present in database
Track 7 not present in database
Track 8 not present in database
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
End of status report