Kristin Asbjørnsen is a Norwegian singer and composer.
During many years Kristin’s work has been causing euphoria among reviewers and audiences.
Known for her very personal approach to songwriting, Kristin’s roots lies in both the singer/songwriter tradition and the groove-based world music. Her trademark sound is rich with contrasts and dynamics, with strong melancholy and a feisty devilish energy. Kristin has a unique voice, and is a master of smooth tone, organic distortion, and bright and complicated singing techniques.

Kristin has featured on a number of album releases, as well as a series of tours and festival performances in Europe. She has won several national Music Awards.
19th January 2009 saw the Norwegian release of Kristin’s new enchanting solo-album:
“The night shines like the day“. The album has been critically acclaimed and this is the first album totally based on Kristin’s own lyrics and music. These days Kristin is doing a release tour in Norway.

During many years Kristin focused mainly on work with her three permanent musical ensembles DADAFON and KRØYT, where her own compositions played a core role. Kristin also participated many years in the vocal experimentation-oriented vocal quartet Kvitretten.
In addition to writing her own lyrics, she is using Victorian and contemporary poems for her music. Kristin received her formal musical education from the Jazz Department at the Trondheim Music Conservatory, Norway.

“The night shines like the day”.

This is the first album totally based on Kristin’s own lyrics and music.
The music is a powerful, mesmerizing beautiful exploration; quiet and intense, with an incredibly strong awareness in the way Kristin is approaching the songs. It’s soulful music that flows, touchingly grounded in Kristin’s unique voice.
This album is all about loss and belonging – a journey of hope, embrace and transforming moments of life.
Kristin wrote the songs at the piano; but along the way the music developed within a haunting and distinctive ensemble sound, where West-African guitars blend creatively with the cello and piano. The arrangements are coloured by Kristin’s interpretations of African American spirituals on the critically acclaimed album ‘Wayfaring Stranger’, as well as her long term duo work with Tord Gustavsen. And they show traces of old gospel hymns and the West African danceable approach.

Kristin says:
“I invited some of the musicians that have been very important to me during the past years. I feel humble and I am touched by the way they have approached my songs, with such powerful musical performances and with so much beauty.”
These arrangements are so finely tuned and rich in texture, with an exceptional playful interaction between the musicians. Still the music – tender and somber expressions – maintains the simplicity and the warm intimacy from where the songs were born.
“The night shines like the day” carries strong imprints of love, The longing to embrace and being embraced.
“It has been a long journey since these songs started to grow in me. Working with the music has been both comforting and challenging. When everything falls apart and there seems to be no way out, we sometimes experience a glimpse of hope entering the darkness, that creates contours of a new view and new directions – expressed in the title of the album: “The night shines like the day”. Creating these songs has been a process gradually grounded in a strong hope and belief that something broken can be turned into beauty.”

http://www.kristinsong.com

Musicians:

• Kristin Asbjørnsen – vocals
• Tord Gustavsen – piano and fender rhodes
• Olav Torget – konting and guitars
• Svante Henryson – cello and electric bass
• Knut Aalefjær – percussion
• Jostein Ansnes – vocals, lap steel and additional guitars
• Sizwe Magwaza – vocals
• Nils Petter Molvaer – Trumpet on “Moment”

Track List:

1. Green is everywhere (01:02)
2. If this is the ending (03:52)
3. Snowflake (03:42)
4. Don’t hide your face from me (03:49)
5. Afloat (04:17)
6. And I long to see you again (03:07)
7. I’m too heavy now (01:28)
8. Walk around me (02:37)
9. Moment (04:16)
10. Rain, oh Lord (04:26)
11. One day my heart will break (02:09)
12. Someday I’ll carry you home (02:56)
13. Lose (02:33)

Duration: 40:14 | Bitrate: 320 kBit/s | Year: 2009 | Size: 84 mb

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Although it’s a dual-leader album, in which oud player Dhafer Youssef‘s performance is at least as important as that of guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, one of Glow’s chief causes for celebration is Muthspiel’s on-form presence. After releasing the shimmeringly beautiful Bright Side (Material Records, 2006)—a little-known masterpiece which may yet take its place alongside such jazz guitar iconographs as Johnny Smith’s Moonlight In Vermont (Roulette, 1953, reissued 2004) and Wes Montgomery’s Incredible Jazz Guitar (Riverside, 1960)—Muthspiel’s project with drummer Brian Blade, Friendly Travelers (Material Records, 2007), was a disappointment, interesting in conception but not entirely convincing in execution.

Glow finds Muthspiel back in immaculate form as both guitarist and producer (significantly, the Blade album was a co-production while the Youssef is solely produced by Muthspiel). The disc reunites the Tunisian oud player and Austrian guitarist after a gap of six years following Muthspiel’s playing and composing collaboration on Youssef’s Electric Sufi (Enja, 2001). The album, Youssef’s breakthrough, was a thrilling, perfectly realized collision of traditional Maghrebi music, European jazz and a lively slab of dirty, visceral rock.

Glow inhabits similar territory, but with a broader, and perhaps deeper, emotional range. In large part this is down to Youssef’s singing, which Muthspiel, as producer, has coaxed to new expressive peaks. At times Youssef’s voice achieves the ecstatic intensity of the late Pakistani qawwali master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, at others it suggests the winsome vulnerability of the late electric troubadour Jeff Buckley. He sounds by turns beatific and scary, caressing and chilling, alternating lustrous tenor passages with tortured, almost weeping, falsetto. It’s an extraordinary performance.

Extraordinary, too, is the instrumental content and, again, comparisons with Electric Sufi are pertinent. The earlier album was recorded by a nine-piece, the new one by a quintet. The smaller line-up retains a trumpeter, with Tom Harrell replacing Markus Stockhausen, but makes more of the interaction between Youssef and Muthspiel. Both have an exquisite gift for melody, and an understanding of the power of silence, and both place every note with precision. It’s a commonplace to say such and such a musician "makes every note count," but Muthspiel, in particular, really does.

Glow uses electronic wizardry with a lighter touch than its predecessor, though textural post-production continues to be a feature of Muthspiel’s work. Alegre Correa replaces drummers Mino Cinelu and Will Calhoun, and works in intimate partnership with the young bassist Matthias Pichler (who debuted so brilliantly on Bright Side).

Some music has the ability to condense time, a smaller proportion stretches it. Glow, its every bar a micro-world of eventful creation, is amongst the latter.

allaboutjazz.com

Musicians:
Dhafer Youssef: voice, oud.
Wolfgang Muthspiel: guitars, violin, programming.
Fender Rhodes piano.
Tom Harrell: trumpet, flugelhorn.
Matthias Pichler: bass.
Alegre Correa: drums, percussion.
Rebekka Bakken: voice (9).

Track List:
1 – Mon Parfum (02:58)
2 – Babylon (06:00)
3 – Sand Dance (04:47)
4 – Mein Versprechen (06:55)
5 – Etude #3 (05:06)
6 – Lamento (03:31)
7 – Maya (05:10)
8 – Emmerich (05:34)
9 – Cosmology (06:01)
10 – Rhapsodie (03:34)

Duration: 49:36 | Bitrate: 320 kBit/s | Year: 2007 | Size: 117 mb

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other Dhafer’s Albums on Suraj:

Madeleine Peyroux [pronounced like the country Peru] was born in Athens, Georgia, she grew up between Brooklyn, Southern California and Paris, though it was in the City of Light where she found her voice. As a teen she was drawn to street music, and in 1989 she started to perform with a group of buskers. She then joined the Lost Wandering Blues & Jazz Band, becoming the only female in the group, which toured around Europe for several years.

Madeleine burst onto the recording scene in 1996, with her stunning debut album “Dreamland.” Madeleine was greeted with a veritable torrent of gushing reviews. Most raved about her smoke-and-whiskey vocals, often comparing her to the late, great Billie Holiday. Others wondered how someone so young could perform classic songs by Holiday, Bessie Smith and Patsy Cline so convincingly as to make them sound like her own.

Madeleine, then an American who had been living in Paris as a street musician, suddenly found herself on the fast track to fame. Appearances at Lilith Fair and jazz festivals, and opening tours for Sarah McLachlan and Cesaria Evora followed, while “Dreamland’s” sales reached an impressive 200,000 copies worldwide. “It was great,” recalls Madeleine. “I got to perform with fantastic musicians. I got to see Nina Simone live. I could’ve kept running with it, but instead I stepped back and took a breather.”

”Careless Love,” on Rounder Records released in 2004, eight years after the release of “Dreamland.” Waiting that long to release her sophomore album is admittedly not a typical career move, but then Madeleine is not a typical artist.

”Careless Love,” featured songs as old as W. C. Handy’s bluesy title track, popularized by Bessie Smith in the late 1920s, and others as recent as Elliott Smith’s folky “Between the Bars.” Madeleine also covers material as diverse as Hank Williams’ “Weary Blues” and Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love.”

Madeleine spent much of the time between “Dreamland” and “Careless Love,” out of the public eye. But she never stopped singing, returning to her busking roots with street performances and club dates around the world from Los Angeles (to New Orleans to New York City) to Western Europe before being signed by Rounder Records in 2003.

”Careless Love,” was a worldwide sales and critical success, putting Madeleine back on fame’s fast track.

Madeleine’s followed up “Careless Love,” with “Half the Perfect World,” released Sept. 2006, again pairing Madeleine and producer Larry Klein. The new record builds on and expands on the direction set with her previous work, featuring a broad range of songwriters including Madeleine herself. Indeed, Peyroux’s vocals bring such insight into both covers and originals on “Half the Perfect World,” that a theme emerges as many of the albums songs explore romantic relationships from a distinctly female perspective.

http://www.madeleinepeyroux.com

allaboutjazz.com

Track List:
01 -  I’m All Right (03:26)
02 -  The Summer Wind (03:54)
03 -  Blue Alert (04:10)
04 -  Everybody’s Talkin’ (05:10)
05 -  River (featuring K. D. Lang) (05:18)
06 -  A Little Bit (04:02)
07 -  Once In A While (03:59)
08 -  (Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night) (03:26)
09 -  Half The Perfect World (04:20)
10 -  La Javanaise (04:09)
11 -  California Rain (02:57)
12 -  Smile (03:58)

Duration: 48:49 | Bitrate: 320 kBit/s | Year: 2006 | Size: 127 mb

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Where does jazz stop and world music start? The boundaries are getting more blurred by the minute. We’re all postmodernists now, and many musicians under fifty reflect a range of influences beyond those traditionally associated with their own core style. Some, like French-Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le, are so polyglot as to be practically beyond category.

Le started out down the cultural miscenegation road with his first band, the multi-ethnic Ultramarine, whose 1989 album, De, was named World Music Album of the Year by the radical French newspaper Liberation. He’s continued to mix it up ever since—prominent genre-benders he’s worked with include Miroslav Vitous, Trilok Gurtu, David Liebman, Paul McCandless, Peter Erskine and Mino Cinelu. In the late 1990s Le became increasingly interested in Maghrebi music, working with Algerian singers Safy Boutella and Cheb Mami, and in 1998 he brought Maghrebi and Vietnamese musicians together on the album Maghrebi & Friends.

None of this, however, can prepare you for the galaxy of sound sources on Homescape, a series of alternating duets with Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu and Tunisian oud player Dhafer Youssef. Some of these sources are developed and explored, others are referred to only in passing, and they include—but aren’t limited to—post-Hendrix rock, Milesian harmon-mute free improv, Maghrebi trance music, Ellingtonia, ambient, a Papua New Guinea vocal choir (sampled and replayed backwards), Delta blues, Vietnamese folk tunes, flamenco, Iranian modes, a Sardinian choir, Australian aboriginal ritual music, French chanson, Gregorian chant, and Indonesian gamelan/gong music.

Guitars, trumpet/flugelhorn and oud aside, the music is generated by loops, samples and overdubs, and the entire heavily post-produced album was recorded and mixed in Le’s Paris apartment – since 2003, his friends and neighbours Fresu and Youssef have been dropping by to home-record. The duets with Fresu are typically in free-improv mode (the exception being Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn’s lovely “Chelsea Bridge”), while the Youssef duets tend to be song or structure-based.

In the main sunny and joyful, though not without some darker and more abrasive moments, the fifteen tracks—average length three minutes, a handful six or seven—resemble a series of round-the-world postcards sent by Le, who mixed and post-produced everything solo, to his collaborators. As a soundtrack to an evening communing with the big bamboo, the exotic and the very exotic drifting in and out of the mix, it’s rich, colourful and beguiling.

allaboutjazz.com

Paolo Fresu (born February 10, 1961) is a trumpet and flugelhorn jazz player, as well as an arranger of music, and music composer. Fresu was born in Berchidda, Sardinia. He picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the band Bernardo de Muro in his home town Berchidda.[1] Fresu graduated from the Conservatory of Cagliari in 1984, in trumpet studies under Enzo Morandini, and attended the University of Musical and performing arts in Bologna.

http://www.paolofresu.it/

Nguyên Lê (b. Paris, France, 14 January 1959) is a French jazz musician and composer of Vietnamese ancestry. His main instrument is guitar, and he also plays electric bass guitar and guitar synthesizer.
He has released numerous albums, both as a leader and as a sideman. His 1996 album Tales from Viêt-Nam blends jazz and traditional Vietnamese music. Nguyên Lê has performed with Randy Brecker, Vince Mendoza, Eric Vloeimans, Carla Bley, Michel Portal, and Dhafer Youssef.

http://www.nguyen-le.com/

Dhafer Youssef (born 1967 in Teboulba, Tunisia) is a composer, vocalist, and oud player. He has been living and working in various European countries since 1990. During this time he had the opportunity to perform his music on stages in Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and other countries as well as his native Tunisia (where he started singing in the Islamic tradition  at age 5 ).

http://www.dhaferyoussef.com/

Nguyen Le – electric, acoustic, fretless, synthesizer, e-bow, Vietnamese guitars, computer programming & electronics.
Paolo Fresu – trumpet, fluegelhorn & electronics.
Dhafer Youssef – oud, vocals & electronics.

Track List:
1 -  Stranieri (Paolo Fresu / Nguyên Lê) (06:00)
2 -  Byzance (Dhafer Youssef / Nguyên Lê) (04:25)
3 -  Muqqam (Dhafer Youssef) (02:44)
4 -  Mali Iwa (Nguyên Lê) (06:27)
5 -  Zafaran (Dhafer Youssef / Nguyen Le) (06:02)
6 -  Domus de Janas (Paolo Fresu / Nguyên Lê) (02:18)
7 – Kithara (Dhafer Youssef) (02:18)
8 -  Chelsea Bridge (Billy Strayhorn) (03:00)
9 -  Safina (Dhafer Youssef / Nguyên Lê) (03:27)
10 -  Des Pres (Paolo Fresu / Nguyên Lê) (02:19)
11 -  Thang Long (Nguyên Lê) (05:33)
12 -  Neon (Paolo Fresu / Nguyên Lê) (03:12)
13 -  Mangustao (Dominique Borker) (07:26)
14 -  Lacrima Christi (Paolo Fresu / Nguyên Lê) (03:14)
15 -  Beyti (Dhafer Youssef / Nguyên Lê) (02:53)

Duration : 61:19 | Bitarte : 320 kBit/s | Year : 2006 | Size : 144 mb

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