Ove Johansson and Per Anders Nilsson
Natural Artefacts

Jazz & Electronics: Natural Artefacts

On March 12, 2007, EMF presented the Scandinavian electroacoustic jazz group Natural Artefacts at Judson Church in NYC. The group blends divergent vocabularies to produce a truly unique sound. Band members include Susanna Lindeborg (piano), Ove Johansson (saxophone), and Per Anders Nilsson (laptop & MIDI controllers).

PROGRAM

Monday, March 12 , 2007; Judson Church, NYC

Fuzzy Walk
August Formula
Carte Orange
Sideband
May Formula
Random Layer
Like Jazz

(All pieces written & performed by Natural Artefacts)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

During the 1970s and 80s, Per Anders Nilsson recorded and toured with his own groups as a sax player. During this period Nilsson performed with Willem Breuker, Anthony Braxton and John Surman, among others. He studied with Jan Garbarek from 1981-87 at the School of Music, Göteborg. At this time he also became very interested in electronic music and undertook lessons with Âke Parmerud and Per Lindgren in Stockholm. In 1993 he made his solo debut, Random Rhapsody on LJ records, which was a blend of free form improvisations, electroacoustic music. Since the late 1990s he has worked more and more as a composer, and, in recent years, he has focused on the computer as an instrument for improvising. Nilsson currently works as a teacher in electroacoustic music composition, and he is also manager for the Lindblad Studio at the Academy of Music and Drama at Göteborg University. He has played at several International Computer Music Conferences, including Aarhus, Banff, Thessaloniki, Beijing and Göteborg, and has been committed at GRM, Paris. Per Anders was also music coordinator for ICMC 2002. He runs a free improv group with Sten Sandell (piano) and Raymond Strid (percussion), both international regarded musicians.

After receiving a classical education, Susanna Lindeborg came into contact with improvised jazz during the 70s, which became an important source of inspiration. She is a virtuoso player of piano and electronic instruments, most widely known for her work with the group Mwendo Dawa, which she leads with saxophonist Ove Johansson. Mwendo Dawa has been successfully touring in 20 countries in Europe, North and South America performing at Jazz festivals like Montreux, North Sea and Montreal. She also writes her own music, some of which was profiled on her first solo CD release in 1989. A second solo CD, Key Paintings, was released 2001, and features acoustic piano with electronic backgrounds.

Ove Johansson's musical work stretches all the way from straight ahead jazz, to free form and electronic jazz, to the acoustic and electroacoustic mix of today. He has produced more than 20 albums with his own material and with the group Mwendo Dawa. His style has always been very personal, with a powerful and intense performance and an unusual sound and technique. Unlike many other players, he has never gotten stuck in a single style, and has always been renewing his own playing and musical expression; he is always on the front lines of new music. He taught saxophone and improvisation at the School of Music, Göteborg University during the 70s and 80s, and in 1989 started his own record label, LJ Records, to present his own and new Scandinavian jazz music to an international audience. Ove Johansson’s second solo CD, In a different world, received a lot of attention in USA and Canada and was selected in 1998 for CD of the week in Jazz Review. His third solo CD, Logic Steps, was released in August 2002.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

The Like Jazz concert presents music from the Natural Artefacts album of the same name. The music combines jazz with other genres, including new music and electronica.

Per Anders Nilsson writes, "Our music consists of compositions and improvisations. The pieces August Formula, May Formula and Like Jazz are based on a common 12-tone row that is used in various (but quite traditional) ways, where the melody lines, bass lines, and harmony are extracted from the row according to well-known serial techniques. Carte Orange is a typical “groove” piece where the rhythm section is a kind of a digital hyper instrument which I control using a game pad. Sidebands and Random Layer are freer improvisations that might change in form, duration, instrumentation and style from time to time.

Natural Artefacts made its start from collaboration over several years between the composer Per Anders Nilsson and the musicians Susanna Lindeborg and Ove Johansson. The trio is developing a concept where the computer acts as a completely integrated musical instrument. The idea is interactive improvisation where the computer musician interacts with acoustic instruments.

The situation, in this case, includes tenor saxophone, grand piano, three computers, three actors, and a number of more or less prepared grounds for improvisation. There can be different means: compositions, loose structures, sound files that create ambient rooms, real time sampling of free improvisations etc. The trio has built a repertoire for this kind of musical creation.