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Mattis & The Grand Trunk Road Ensemble
live at Punkt Festival 2009:
Concert review by John Kelman
Myrland,
a singer/songwriter with a distinctive predilection for late-1960s and
earl-1970s American singer/songwriters including Leonard Cohen and
Crosby, Stills & Nash, opened the evening with a set of appealing
original music, focusing on the his own unaffected but clearly affecting
voice, and those of banjoist/vocalist Hans Martin Austestad and
harmonium player/vocalist Wenche Losnegård. With a sextet also
including drummer/sampler Freddy Wike, bassist/baritone guitarist Jo
Berger Myhre and guitarist Jan Martin Smørdal, there was plenty of
available instrumentation to deliver music ranging from acoustic and
sweet to electric and hard-edged.
Curious samples of even richer vocal harmonies,
in addition to more jagged textures, sometimes underscored a group
sound that was, at times, spare and ethereal, but elsewhere became
dense and propulsive. Myrland's direct yet poetic bent was well
supported, most notably by Smørdal, who added a touch of Bill
Frisell-like idiosyncrasy to the music, with distinctive voicings and
resonant, sustaining chords that oscillated in and around the music.
Avoiding the prerequisite rhytm section sound, Myhre's baritone guitar
work often took center stage instrumentally, even as Myrland's grungy,
distorted acoustic guitar sounded more garage band than folk
troubadour; still, in a strange way the group's confluence of seemingly
disparate and incongrous textures came together in an attractive
fashion and worked.
Read the whole article here (including a great review of Navyelectre)
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The Grand Trunk Road Ensemble performing at NRK & Oslo World Music Festival's Debut Artist Award 2008. Photos by Andreas Ulvo.
   
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Check out these and other photos from India and Nepal in the Gallery .
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