A new recording by Eivind Aarset is big news at Guitar Moderne as he was an important inspiration when beginning the magazine.The record, I.E., features the quartet Erland Dahlen, Wetle Holte, Audun Erlien, and Eivind Aarset, plus guests including Jan Bang, Lorenzo Esposito Fornaseri, Jan Galega Brönnimann, Michele Rabbia and horns from Det Norske Blaase ensemble. Listen here for one tune and four snippets. A full interview coming soon.
It was discovering a video of Jan Bang playing with Marc Ducret that ultimately led to an interview with the third member of the trio: Gunnar Geisse.
Losing the two middle fingers on his right hand in a mountain climbing accident in 1992 may have led Geisse towards composition during his recovery, but, on the evidence of his latest video, it has not slowed down his playing. Check out how he employs Jam Origin’s MIDI Guitar to its full potential and read here about the setup he uses to do it.
You could say Eivind Aarset started this whole Guitar Moderne thing. It was discovering his work with trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær that started me searching YouTube for video of him playing live, long before I got to see him play in Montreal, New York, and London. Through that search, I discovered other players and the rest is history. It has been a while since his 2012 release Dream Logic, a solo project for ECM, and another YouTube discovery: a workshop he did in Istanbul revealed some new gear. I reached out and Eivind was kind enough to respond with some help in identifying the gear and some info as to what he has coming out.
It has been my dream to attend the Punkt Festival in Norway. There, some of the worlds most forward thinking musicians perform concerts that are recorded live, then remixed immediately after for another audience. In 2013 Eivind Aarset performed with his quartet, augmented by Jan Bang, and was subsequently remixed by Bang, Arve Henriksen and Eric Honore. I wasn’t there and probably neither were you, but fortunately for all of us both Aarset’s performance and the remix are presented here.