Sven-Åke Johansson
... über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel
Mega tip! Even within the sprawling oeuvres of Sven-Åke Johansson and Alexander von Schlippenbach, both known for their innovative rethinking and broadening of artistic categories, the dramatic work "... über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel" ("... on cause and effect of the disagreements during the building of the Tower of Babel") remains a unique and rare enigma: What is it actually? Johansson has alternately called it a music drama, an opera, and a sings…
Fläche & Figur (14 Duos Für Akkordeon Und Drumsets)
Rüdiger Carl and Sven-Åke Johansson are two fellow travelers on the path of experimental music who have worked together since the late 1960s in many formations, most notably as the wild-card Fluxus pranksters on Peter Brötzmann’s legendary 1969 recording Machine Gun, and on many more recordings and stagings of sonic interventions over the decades. In the words of Peter Margasak writing in the Chicago Reader in 2012: “Where to begin with percussionist and polymath Sven-Åke Johansson: Is he a beb…
Stumps
* 75 copies limited edition * In times of vinyl shortage and production backlog, resourcefulness is key. In keeping with his well-established practice of replacing original materials with surrogates to generate new sonic experiences, Sven-Åke Johansson has devised a digital reinterpretation of the historic flexidisc in the shape of a 10inch rubber disc with engraved QR codes that let buyers access the music online.
About the music: "The six compositions titled ‘stumps’ are based on a potential f…
Live '82
Tip! Black Truffle announce a major archival discovery from the wildest outer fringes of the FMP universe, the Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett's Live '82. The Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett (BBQ) was formed in 1980 in Rostock, East Germany, when three of the most radical and riotous members of the West German free music scene -- reedist/accordionist Rüdiger Carl, percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson, and Hans Reichel on violin and his modified "strange guitars" -- first played as a quartet …
Safe Crash
**Limited to 100 copies** "Evidence hints at the event. Parts of broken drumsticks, a sound recording, a photograph and a written approach. Traces, relics. The work „Safe Crash“ by visual artist Florian Bräunlich consists of porcelain drumsticks, plastic buckets, a wooden platform, varnish, cymbals, cymbal stands, a floor tom and a spotlight on which the second release of „dispari“ is based.A sound recording witnesses Sven-Åke Johansson’s performance of Florian Bräunlich’s “Safe Crash” at HFBK, …
Rhythm Ace & Slingerland
Rhythm Ace & Slingerland, a co-production by Ni Vu Ni Connu and Galerie Max Hetzler, is one of numerous collaborations between longstanding friends Oehlen and Johansson, following from their 2003 album Shotgun Wedding, also featuring Mayo Thompson of Red Krayola. This album explores how art infuences music and vice versa – a question often explored in Oehlen’s work. The idea originated from Johansson’s visit to the artist’s studio in 2018. Oehlen showed the drummer his collection of rhythm machi…
Swinging At Topsi's
An evening of free improvisation recorded in Berlin at au Topsi Pohl in 2020 from the Swedish trio of Euro Free Jazz legend Sven-Ake Johansson on drums, Niklas Fite on acoustic guitar and Joel Grip on double bass, performing two extended and dynamic improvisations, and then settling into jazz standard form for "Isn't It Romantic" and "Out of Nowhere" sung by by Johansson. The novelty and warmth of the songs aside, the serious work heard in Sets 1 & 2 of shows the trio in fine form, evolving thei…
Night Music
**Edition of 300** "Night Music" unearthes Sven-Åke Johansson's very first recordings from 1964 – made with his Tandberg tape recorder in the Kronenburg Bar, a dive bar in the red-light district in Münster/Westfalen (West Germany). There he performed jazz versions of popular songs and standards with Uwe Wegner (piano) and Gerold Flasse (double bass), sometimes joined by Dutch singer Jenny Gordee. Young Udo Lindenberg was a frequent guest at the Kronenburg Bar. Side A of the LP features 7 songs …
Djungelmusik Med Sang
Rüdiger Carl: accordion, clarinet; Sven-Åke Johansson: accordion, drums and voice. "Recorded 1997 at the book and record store Andra Böcker och Skivor in Stockholm. This CD featuring two of the most innovative improvisors in Europe is the first released recording of the duo since 1985. Carl and Johansson's music isn't tied to any genre, but instead flows freely over both known and unknown territories, in it's own unique way. Sound-wise, the CD has a special focus: every track on Djungelmusik med…
Blue for a Moment
Blue for a Moment retraces the artistic career of the Berlin-based Swedish jazz musician, avant-garde composer, poet and visual artist Sven-Åke Johansson, one of the most singular and exciting figures in European improvised music.
Johansson (born 1943 in Mariestad) moved to Berlin in the late 1960s, where he has since been active in a variety of music and artistic contexts. His first performances took place in the context of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab on Hallesches Ufer, where young musicians and …
Seewetter
Marine weather reports recorded from radio broadcasts by Sven-Åke Johansson in 1970 at the Kollektiv für Kommunikative und Ästhetische Forschung in Mariental, Lower Saxony, Germany. Edition of 300 with printed inner sleeve containing liner notes by Thomas Millroth about forms of artistic appropriation in Johansson's work.
Das Moabiter Duo - Recovered
In February 2020, Sven-Åke Johansson and Thomas Kapielski released the vinyl LP Recovered under their project name Das Moabiter Duo at Fantôme Verlag. It was published on the occasion of a joint exhibition by Johansson and Kapielski at the Laura Mars Gallery, Berlin.Recovered, mixed and mastered by Frieder Butzmann, features a previously unreleased concert recording from 1983. Joint performances by Kapielski and Johansson took place in clubs like the Korrekt (Alt-Moabit, Berlin) or ‒ as part o…
Schlingerland / Dynamische Schwingungen
Cien Fuegos present a reissue of Sven-Åke Johansson's Schlingerland / Dynamische Schwingungen, originally released in 1972. Sven-Åke Johansson (Mariestad, Sweden, 1943) works as a composer, drummer, accordionist, poet, and visual artist. Longtime collaborator of the free improv scene in the German '60s with Kowald, Brötzmann, Schlippenbach. He contributed to numerous exhibitions, publications, and recordings. Sven-Åke Johansson - drums. Recorded 1972 in Stockholm, Schweden. Engineered by Göran F…
Songs From Elsewhere
**300 copies** Duo recordings by Sven-Åke Johansson (vocals) and Simon James Phillips (piano), made in 2017 in Johansson's studio in Berlin. Phillips is an Australian composer and pianist working in the contexts of classical, experimental, and improvisational music. Johansson is a Swedish percussionist and performer in the circles of fine arts, new music, and free improvisation. Both live and work in Berlin.
"Simon arrived in my studio with songs by Jean Sibelius to try out. However, being bad a…
Puls-Plus-Puls
Jan Jelinek and legendary jazz percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson probe ideas about the “anthropology of drumming” with entrancing results for Luxembourg’s Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu label. A sterling addition to Jelinek’s catalogue of solo releases and experimental collaborations, ‘puls-plus-puls’ finds the German artist properly indulging a formative passion for jazz music alongside one of free-jazz music’s most respected percussionists. Of course, this being Jelinek, the results are craftily complex but un…
Grau-Grün-Welk-Satt
solo set recorded at SÅJ Studio in Berlin in 2017 that reconnects with Sven-Åke Johansson’s 1972 seminal first solo record Schlingerland originally released on Fmp, presenting just the man and his drum set, and it's a fascinating listen. "You can hit beats so that they betray an intention – through accentuation or emphasis. Or you can hit them so that they seem mechanical, devoid of intention, a pure pulse, as in much minimalist music. Both possibilities abound in different genres. But there is …
Schraubenlieder
Trost present Schraubenlieder, unreleased songs by Sven-Ake Johansson and Alexander von Schlippenbach from 1988, recorded by Radio DRS Bern. Personnel: Sven-Ake Johansson - vocals; Alexander von Schlippenbach - piano.
Neuköllner Modelle (Sektion 1-2)
Sektion 1-2 is an extravagant LP-production which depicts the new musical thoughts and craftsmanships of three musician identities who couldn’t be further apart (or better distributed) in age. Together they work on the form. The result is a radical suspended shape of instrumental interplay, exploring unbound rhythms, structures, and harmonies.
Even though Neuköllner Modelle draws attention to Free Jazz (a genre of which Sven-Ake Johansson became one of the european pioneers), their methods…
Blended Box
Awesome 5xCD box featuring collective releases from the 70s to the recent years by the Swedish legendary pioneer of free jazz and improvised music. Sven-Åke Johansson (Mariestad, Sweden, 1943) is a composer, a drummer, a poet, an author and also a visual artist. Longtime collaborator of the free improv scene back in the German sixties with Peter Kowald and Peter Brötzmann, furthermore with Manfred Schoof, Schlippenbach, Rüdiger Carl and Hans Reichel. He contributed to numerous exhibitions, p…
Stockholm Connection
A unique 3CD-box from Umlaut Records putting in attention the musical collaborations between two of Sweden’s most headstrong musicians: the pioneers Bengt “Frippe” Nordström and Sven-Åke Johansson. The previously non-released music was recorded in Stockholm 1970, 1977 and 1982 and portrait the musicians both in format of a trio, including legendary pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and in a large orchestra led by Johansson including, at the time, young groundbreaking jazz musicians from Swede…