blog
Mar 17, 2012
The biggest thing on Dutch TV is a show called De Wereld Draait Door. It’s a fast paced variety talk show, and every night they have little thing where they have a band play a one minute version of a song. The other day, I was involved in this very thing with the wunderschöne Kim Janssen.
We got to watch the show being broadcast in real time and boy, was it psychedelic. The host opened the show by shouting a supercondensed monologue at the camera, then jumping to another position and shouting something else. Everything was superfast and super-enlarged, and at the same time, everything was rolling along a carefully constructed railroad track of hyperfocussed attention. You couldn’t help but follow along, wide eyed and alert.
I didn’t realize, but apparently, if you want to come across as halfway intelligible on TV, you have to simplify and amplify whatever you have to say by a factor of ten1. Fitting with the show’s formula, the same goes for the request that we condense the song into one minute. It was a funny thing that resulted; a kind of an elevator pitch of a song. In a way, it’s a good excercise to pick out what the real core of the song is and amplify it. A kind of forced clarity.
Of course, this isn’t always feasible. Just as they were breaking through in the US, Sigur Rós declined to do just this for a huge US talk show. I’m going to take a shot-in-the-dark guess and say that they felt the pith of the song was the song itself, and nothing could be cut without undermining the whole shebang. But as an excercise, it’s a interesting thing to do.2
Feb 28, 2012
Hey, what happened?
Dear Googlebot and/or Russian search engine crawler!
You might be wondering why I haven’t updated this here blogue for a whole year. Has Eiríkur forgotten his password? Has he finally succumbed to the temptation of becoming an ivory dealer in Sudan?
Fear not, my dear script! All shall be explained, so that there is no question left unanswered. So what have I done for the past year? I’m curious myself, so I had a look at my calendar and made a quick overview.
2011:
January:
Recorded some trumpet for The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s From the Stairwell
Played a show with Kira Kira at Dark Music Days in Reykjavík (see post below)
Hatched a plan (see August)
February:
hdden played a show in Zaal 100 at Icelandic Music Days
Joined Kippi Kaninus and Magnús Trygvason Eliassen for a quick romp at Cafe Kremers in Den Haag.
Worked on some ideas with Knalpot.
March:
hdden played at TryTone Festival, Amsterdam
Live scored Karel Doing’s Images of a Moving City with Mt. Fuji Doomjazz Corporation at Melkweg, Amsterdam
Recorded some trompei for Kira Kira’s upcoming album
April:
Two week European tour with Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble
Made test recordings with Knalpot
May:
Show with Binary Orchid at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam
Lots of trumpet practice, trying to internalize Malte Burba’s teachings, lots of lying on the floor and breathing. (It really works.)
Worked on a laptop/trumpet solo set
June:
Múm goes to Japan, plays a wonderful show at Taico Club festival in Nagano. Get lost inside a maze with Alex Smoke
While in Tokyo, play a secret (actually secret) improv set with Róbert Reynisson, Wata Igarashi and a friend at a tiny bar in Shibuya
July:
Show with Kippi Kaninus in Reykjavík
Did string arrangements for múm’s movie soundtrack for an as-yet-unnanounced film
Did sound for an installation with Irene Ósk Bermudez and Guðbjörg Hlín Guðmundsdóttir at LungA festival in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland
Also did a lovely set with Kippi Kaninus and Bogomil Font at said festival
Performance with Kira Kira at Thomas Pausz’s Hortus Praxis exhibition at the MUDAM museum in Luxembourg
August:
Working on string and brass arrangements for Sin Fang’s upcoming album
Recorded some trumpet for upcoming Borko album
After years of watching from the sidelines, I finally got serious about learning how to become a developer, started an undergraduate course in Computer Science at Reykjavik University. (Doing it by distance learning. Drastic, I know.)
September:
Sin Fang string and brass recordings! Also played some trumpet on that one.
October:
Show with The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble in Essen
Shows with múm in Warsaw and Istanbul
November:
Show with The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble in Athens, Greece
December:
Recorded trumpet for Gyða Valtýsdóttir’s upcoming album
Tried my hand at making a vst plugin (Ha! didn’t work! Damn you, JUCE framework!)
2012:
January:
Show with The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble at the Rumour festival in Utrecht
February:
Show with Binary Orchid in Eindhoven
Live scoring the movie Tuvalu with Kira Kira at the Artium in Vitoria, Spain
It wasn’t my busiest year musically, but a good one nonetheless. It was especially fun doing a bunch of string and brass arrangements for Sin Fang and múm. And it was refreshing not to tour my life away.
Regrets: I’ve had a few. Especially chickening out on working on my near-imaginary solo set. Now there’s a dragon to be slayed! Also, I’d like to achieve something tangible with audio programming.
Overall, it was a good year. And 2012 looks to be great as well, lots of exciting stuff in the pipes. Maybe I’ll poke a hole in that dragon!
Whew! Clean slate! Where do I go from here?
Jan 27, 2011
Return of the Ptarmigan
The first thing I did when I came to Reykjavík back in December was to haul my person downtown and play a short duo set with visiting trumpet player Jacob Wick. Thanks to the magic of modern communication, the gig is now on the internet for all to hear! It’s on Jacob’s website, right about here.
Jan 24, 2011
Januwar
I’ve been spending a few weeks in Iceland. It’s been a while since I’ve felt an authentic Icelandic January (I’ve been geographically removed for a few years now), but I can safely report that it has not ceased to be a depressing, horrid time of the year. But I digress. What I really meant to say is that this coming Saturday I’m playing the music of Kira Kira with a whole bunch of awesome people. Let’s list these awesome people, then:
Kira Kira - musical laptop pop opportunity (say it three times fast)
Hilmar Jensson - Electric Guitar
Pétur Hallgrímsson - Slide Guitar
Jóel Pálsson - Contrabass Clarinet
Borgar Magnason - Contrabass
Óttar Sæmundsen - Contrabass
Samuli Kosminen - Drums, whatnot
Urs truly - trumpet, tenor horn and loops.
The whole shebang can be read about in scant detail on this here web-site.
I’ve also been doing some other nice stuffs: I had a great time recording for Sin Fang’s next LP (not the one he’s releasing soon, but the next one. Is a man possessed, he is). I also did some recording for The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s upcoming album, currently being funded by Pledgemusic. It’s a funny new way of financing albums. While I’ve never pledged on an album, I did pledge on a photo book recently and, as a keen adventurer and economic thrill-seeker, found the whole process really satisfying and exciting. I urge you to take a look at The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s Pledgemusic page and check it out. It’s going to be a great album.
Dec 3, 2010
Imminent broth
Hello! Just a quick update to this barren, lovelorn part of the yondernet: I’m playing at the Zaal 100 in Amsterdam with some great people this Tuesday (Dec 7th):
Jacob Wick (NYC) trumpet
Mark Morse (UK/Amsterdam) guitar
Jasper Stadhouders (Amsterdam) guitar
Onno Govaert (Amsterdam) drums
Mark Morse is keeping a very nice practice diary on his site. My favorite is this post about the sound his camera makes when up close to the guitar pickup.
Show starts at 21:00.
Nov 19, 2010
Do you know The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble? They come from Holland, essentially, and they play a brooding, moody kind of live-electronic music. I did a short tour with them last week, and it was a total blast. The drummer is the great Hungarian Balaz Pandi, who’s currently playing drums with Merzbow. Balaz is no stranger to darkness, and at the end of a long day in Budapest, his head still spinning after witnessing a man dying from a heart attack in the tram, he showed me this video.
Oct 27, 2010
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been on tour with Seabear in the US. We did this small session for a site called Big Ugly Yellow Couch in Brooklyn. The tour has been a lot of fun. We’ve mostly been playing bigger cities on the West Coast, but also small places like Boise, Idaho. It’s no less fun playing these places - there’s nothing like playing for twenty people desperately in need of something, ANYTHING else than Taylor Swift.
Oct 9, 2010
Oct 2, 2010
Köln
Belgischer Haus, Cologne, September 25th 2010 by eirikurorri
Hæ! This is a recording from last weekend’s concert in Cologne. Harald Austbo on cello, Jasper Stadhouders on guitar and myself on the trumpet.
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010
