Fredrik Lundin: tenor, soprano saxophone, flutes, electronics.

Hasse Poulsen: guitars.

Lars Juul: drum

1. Back street Theatre
2. Slow News
3. Swamp People
4. Corals
5. Rue de Lombards
6. Le marais de sable
7. E-business
8. Claudia In A Good Mood
9. a Day In the Life Of a Forgotten Artist
10. Homo
11. Sunday In The Suburbs
12. mr. Rioso
13. Waltz For the Past

all music composed by Lundin, Poulsen, Juul: KODA,

except 8 & 13 by Hasse Poulsen, KODA

LJ records, Box 9, SE-31042 Haverdal, Sweden

Fax.+46 35 51439, e-mail:ove.johansson@lj-records.se

http://www.lj-records.se

LJCD 5227  2001

Back Street Theatre is a little place hidden in a short dead end street. It is not big, but there is always something going on: a piece of theatre, a poetry reading, a concert, a performance or some weird mix of genres. You will always find a little crowd checking out what is going on. The back street theatres exist because the artists want them to exist, because it is in these small places ignored by the boisterous official culture that the art of today can flourish and develop, where musicians can refine their music, try out more or less impossible ideas or just enjoy playing together. The intimate atmosphere attracts the real connoisseurs of the music: The people who enjoy good musicianship and the possibility of being surprised or even shaken now and again. 

Back Street Theatre is Sound of Choice’s fourth release and marks a new turn in their music: more dry, more direct, shorter pieces. The sounds they have found during their years of experimentation and free improvisation are now used in contexts that resemble regular tunes. But do not mistake this as a return to conventional forms: what at first listening seems to be a well defined form later turns out to be only a sketch, maybe just a word, that centres the otherwise free improvisation by the group members.

The playing on Back Street Theatre is characterized by the freshness that has been the Sound of Choice trademark since their first release Triple Exposure in 1993. As a listener you have the feeling of witnessing the invention of music. A unique music shaped by three highly skilled and imaginative instrumentalists. It is not easy to pigeonhole this music. Reminiscences of European improvisation blends with jazz, ambient electronics, tecnoid electronics, Nordic romanticism - some places you might even imagine Tom Waits singing along with the choices. This is a music of today that is not concerned about being contemporary. It is simply the music of a trio, the music of Sound of Choice.

Listen and enjoy

Fredrik Lundin describes his artistic approach as similar to that of painters or writers.

Using sounds as colours, working with textures and space, he conceives his musical contributions as pieces of larger tales or as soundtracks to imagined films. Lundin has extended his instrumental palette by including a variety of flutes and reed instruments and, as the two other Sound of Choice members, several modulation and delay devices, in order to cover a very wide spectrum of sound.

Fredrik Lundin’s work covers a broad spectre of contemporary music. Since the age of nineteen he has been Denmark’s foremost saxophonist playing and recording with everybody on the Danish and Scandinavian scene. Today he plays in several Scandinavian jazz groups. He considers himself as much a composer as an instrumentalist, composing for jazz as well as classical ensembles. When composing for classical ensembles Lundin extensively uses the sounds and structures found while working with Sound of Choice and other improvising groups.

Hasse Poulsen is a musical refugee in Paris. Having fled the conservative straightjacket of Danish jazz he is now part of the big and very creative jazz and improvising scene in France, exploring his guitar with the reckless abandon of contemporary improvisers in contexts that range from radical improvisation to jazz française. For a short period Poulsen studied composition with Bent Sørensen, but quickly realized that he could achieve more gratifying musical results by playing and choosing the right musicians for the right contexts.

Artistically Poulsen tries to achieve a completely controlled music by way of complete improvisation. This with a taste for the unfinished - or should we say unpolished.

Hasse Poulsen’s instrumental vocabulary is very large: using techniques from different genres of jazz, flamenco, classical guitar, combined with a large range of alternative techniques associated with improvised guitar, different means of preparation, and – though this is not obvious on this release – pedals and electronics.

Even though Lars Juul describes his perception of the drums as primarily colouristic – he is very concerned with the timbres and possible sound qualities of the kit – it is obvious that he is basically a musician who likes to swing. Whether the playing is in 4/4 or completely abstract, his coherence and propulsion strengthens the natural logic of the music.

Apart from a large acoustic spectrum of colours - skins, wood, metal, plastic – he works extensively with various sampling and effect machines, which he controls by foot pedals placed between the drums. Being a busy musician on the Danish new jazz and improvising scene Juul leads a trio including Barry Guy and Irene Schweitzer as well the more electronic trio Takuan with whom he tours extensively.

Lars Juul has composed for various though not many ensembles as well as music for film, theatre, and dance performances.

photos Soala