Two Day Residency with FIRE! - Mats Gustafsson's trio with Johan Berthling (Tape) and Andreas Werliin (Wildbirds and Peace Drums) building a new language of improvised music with inspiration drawn from garage rock, free jazz, Sweden's esteemed history of electro-acoustic and experimental music and everyday industrial sound pressure. No strangers to collaboration, they'll be joined on the first day of this residency by turntable improviser Christian Marclay and by exploratory guitarist Stian Westerhus and vocalist Sofia Jernberg on the second day.

FIRE!

Mats Gustafsson - saxophones, Fender Rhodes and electronics
Johan Berthling - bass
Andreas Werliin - drums and percussion.

Fire! is a trio from Sweden with members from The Thing, Tape, Wildbirds and Peacedrums, creating a mix of slow down – speeded up, distorted versions of contemporary experimental music.

With inspiration from mining, large lorry engines, electro acoustic music from Sweden and a large variety of creative garage rock and free jazz, FIRE! is building up a new language and models for how improvised music can be done. The idea for the group came from enigmatic concert promoter Conny Lindström and he booked us a first gig at the small bar at restaurant Riche in Stockholm. The sheer volume made the bar personnel hold on the glasses in fear they would crack of the soundpressure. Everybody enjoyed themselves and later on time was booked for sessions at Tape´s small studio in the industrial parts of Stockholm.

The sound that came out was a mixture of all three members backgrounds and we didn´t shy away from overdubs and other methods.

The first album “You liked me five minutes ago” was recorded in Stockholm and released in 2009. They've since operated frequently with guests in tow including Jim O´Rourke who plays electric guitar on 2011's 'Unreleased?' LP and Oren Ambarchi who adds his distinctive bass throb and searching electronics to 2012's exceptional 'In the Mouth, A Hand'. They've since expanded exponentially as the Fire! Orchestra - taking the project to the next level: a sonic behemoth comprising 28 members from Swedish jazz, improv and avant rock that should be unmanageable, but turns out to possess the elegance and lucidity of the righteous free jazz big bands of the past: Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra. Carla Bley’s “Escalator Over the Hill”. Centipede. Sun Ra’s “Space Is The Place”. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath...

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www.runegrammofon.com/artists/fire_



CHRISTIAN MARCLAY / turntables

Over the past 30 years, Christian Marclay has explored the fusion of fine art and audio cultures, transforming sounds and music into a visible, physical form through performance, collage, sculpture, installation, photography and video. His latest major work, The Clock, is a 24 hour video piece constructed from films where the time is expressed has been declared 'a masterpiece' (Frieze Magazine).

Raised in Switzerland, Marclay has spent most of his adult life in America, but now lives in mostly in London and New York. He began performing with turntables whilst still a student in the late 70s - According to critic Thom Jurek, Marclay was the 'unwitting inventor of turntablism' and has since been active in the field of free improvisation, performing with the world's best improvisors including Evan Parker, John Zorn, Otomo Yoshihide and many many more. Marclay's graphic scores, which take musical motifs from everyday objects, signs and advertising was recently celebrated with a three month festival at the Whitney in New York during July-September 2010.

"Christian Marclay can make music out of almost anything." -WNYC



STIAN WESTERHUS / guitar, electronics

A constantly inventive, shape-shifting guitarist, Westerhus to deftly conjures waves of nightmarish, punishing distortion and howling feedback from pools of gorgeous melody. Whilst focussed primarily on solo performance, Westerhus has collaborated with Nils Petter Molvær, Lasse Marhaug, Eldbjørg Raknes, Sidsel Endresen, Jaga Jazzist and many others and is a founding member of Puma and Monolithic (a duo with Kenneth Kapstad).

"Westerhus seems to locate himself somewhere between the abstraction of free improv, the feral expressionism of electric free jazz and the cerebral ambience of Viennese electronica. If Keith Rowe, Sonny Sharrock and Fennesz had a jam session on one of Neptune's frozen moons, it might sound a bit like this." Peter Marsh, BBC Music