Speeq est l’une des plus belles propositions musicales entendues en 2006! Armand Meignan
La musique de Speeq ce trouve dans la zone entre l'improvisation musicale et le rock avant-garde….un groupe qu'il faut certainement suivre dans l'avenir.- Herman te Loo, Jazzflits juin 28 2007.
The Speeq concert at Luz St. Sauveur was surely one of this summers absolute highlights.
Philippe Meziat, Jazz magazine september 2006
Jazz à Luz - dimanche 9 juillet
The concert by Speeq met up to our expectations. Knowing the voice of Sidsel Endresen (who works with among others Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Petter Molvear) from record, one had high expectations of her performance in the company of Hasse Poulsen (electric guitar), Marc Sanders (drums), and Luc Ex member of the Dutch group The Ex (bass-guitar). The least I can say is that we were not deceived! Straight from the first piece, very chaotic, one could admire the volcanic playing of Luc Ex (who impressed both by his movements as by the impression of his force), Hasse`s palette of sounds of strings struck and vibrated (by means of a violin bow), Marc Sanders brutal playing as well as Sidsel`s magnificent voice. Coming in to somewhat calm the sound-of-noise efforts of her companions.
The group did three songs in a rollercoaster form, and an encore which sounded like a real song in which one again could admire the charm of Sidsel`s voice.
It was still under the spell of this enormous concert that we went over to listen to………
by: DrBou - drbou31@hotmail.com, chronique publiée le 30/07/200
Jazzdor / Yves Robert and Speeq at Pôle Sud
…about Yves….
Of their freedom the four members of SPEEQ never exhausted the force or violence. Beside the Dutch Luc Ex – the convulsive rock bassist from THE EX – the dane Hasse Poulsen – known from Louis Sclavis’ Napoli’s Walls – the British drmmer with the bels from heaven Mark Sanders, we follow the curses thrown by Sidsel Endresen pionneer of the boiling néo-jazz scene made in Norway.
From the pythea sitting to the side, guttural onomatopeias escape, shaking a body as if it had survived a silent tragedy by Kaurimäki. The Brit´s agile drums serve as the invertebrate column to the bruitist flights and the folksounding landings.The bassist´s heavy clawings anticipates the melodic guitar, even if this climactic voyage announces to be stormy, then hypnotic. And if this musical marriage transcends geographical physics, it probes actually our interior seasons: Speeq talked to the heart as well as to the mind – the rest is only silence.
Veneranda Paladino, Dernières nouvelles d’Alsace , Monday nov 13th 2006
Samizdjazz, Damien R. dimanche 12 mars 2006
Banlieues Bleues (3)
The concert started out with guttural and gnomatopic sounds from Sidsel Endresen, while the three other musicians set out on a slow noise progression leading to an explosion related to the saturated sounds of rock guitar.
Following this surprising opening the surprise continued with a very melodic, almost folk decrescendo played by Hasse Poulsen on the guitar.
The concert was one uninterrupted suite characterized by forceful tensions and sweet twilight melodies, very meditative, with a Sidsel Endresen sometimes singing in an articulate way, sometimes happy to do borborygmes and onomatopoeias.
The bass guitar of Luc Ex gave, by its continual buzzing, a hypnotic dimension to the music. Seeing him twist and bend while he played one couldn’t help thinking of the very choreographic dimension of the project. You almost imagined a few dancers fully incarnating the multiples directional changes of Mark Sanders agile drumming.
By dynamizing the energies; the British drummer served as the musical vertebrae amongst the zigzaggings of his one night colleagues.
Like Sidsel Endresen; he seemed to switch constantly between a clear discourse and a noisism created with his many small percussion instruments. His small obstacles sonores was echoed by Hasse Poulsen who placed different metallic objects on his guitar – as with a prepared piano – in order to change the sonorities.
What did the audience, that stayed silent all through the concert, think? After one hour of strange and truly original music, the answer came leaving no doubt: a particularly enthusiastic applause.
Publié le 16 octobre 2006
Speeq (Norvège - Pays-Bas - Danemark - Grande-Bretagne) - Dimanche 9 juillet 2006 - Chapiteau Sidsel Endresen - voc Luc Ex - basse acoustique Hasse Poulsen - guitare acoustique Marc Sanders – dr
© H. Collon/Vues sur Scènes
Après une finale de coupe du monde de football à rallonge, responsable d’un retard de deux heures, Speeq arrive sur la scène du chapiteau, plongée dans l’ombre. Le groupe aura mérité son public...
Incandescence immédiate. Entre élucubrations bruitistes et free punk, [S]-anders-[P]-oulsen-[E]-x-[E]-ndresen-[K] est prêt à déchaîner la furie contenue pendant le match. Tout en force et virilité, Luc Ex se jette sur ses pédales et fait hurler sa guitare basse, qui se répand en aboiements agressifs. Il renverse l’instrument, en pose la tête à terre, appuie dessus et la traîne vers lui pour produire un son sourd, continu, perturbant. Dans son sillage il entraîne aussitôt Hasse Poulsen.
Très en verve, ce dernier, entre déhanchements et sueurs, utilise toutes les possibilités de sa guitare acoustique, dont il tire des sons évocateurs : proche de l’accordéon avec l’archet, métallique avec le médiator. Il joue en accords dissonants sur des rythmiques rock ou punk avec une sonorité trash et dirty, sans craindre la répétition. Très inventif quand au son, lui aussi, Marc Sanders s’associe souvent à l’un de ses comparses, dont Sidsel Endresenpour le ou la pousser souvent dans ses meilleurs retranchements
La lumière se fait sur la voix limpide de Sidsel Endresen. Hors du temps, sur un tempo susurré et qui n’existera réellement que dans notre imagination, la chanteuse aux pieds nus est hallucinante, flamboyante. Tout en onomatopées aspirées et syllabes inattendues, cette vraie musicienne chante, bruite comme un disque rayé ou passé à l’envers, et ses messages subliminaux situés dans l’infra-linguistique déclenchent une dynamique rythmique qui entraîne le groupe. Chant et voix s’entrecoupent, saccadés comme des torrents multiples ; cordes vocales et claquements de langue se superposent de manière harmonieuse et sidérante. Dès lors, on ne sait plus si cette musique nouvelle, au gabarit plus free rock que jazz, naît d’une improvisation basée sur un canevas prédéfini, de grilles, ou d’une complicité naturelle entre créateurs. Mieux vaut ne pas s’en soucier, mais simplement en jouir.
Terreur enfantine quand on a pour seuls compagnons les bruits de la nuit. Impression de violence et de fragilité sur une trame hystérique mais créatrice : alors que Luc Ex tape sur les cordes de sa basse avec une cuillère, celle-ci lui échappe et atterrit dans le public. Gêné, il s’interrompt - en même temps que le batteur et le guitariste, qui éclatent de rire. Endresel, elle, est perturbée. Sa voix magnifique s’éteint et laisse place à la personne même, visiblement timide et émue. Déjantée, décalée, elle n’arrive pas à sortir de sa transe créatrice pour revenir aussi brutalement à la réalité. Entre fou rire et sanglots, elle finit par se reprendre, victime de son propre talent.
Speeq, Live in Strasbourg (Red Note)
The Guardian (GB) , John Fordham, Friday July 27, 2007,
Speeq played in this year's Cheltenham jazz festival, and although they are the kind of uncompromising improv group who drive a few disgruntled listeners out of the room in the opening moments, they rightly drew loud appreciation from the majority who stayed put. Sidsel Endresen, the Norwegian singer who came out of the folk world and has worked extensively with avant-fusioneer Bugge Wesseltoft, is the star guest with the Speeq trio - often delivering stuttery, chattering sounds, like drum-machine noises, or Indian rhythm-pattern singing adapted for free-jazz.
The excellent British free-drummer Mark Sanders, bassist Luc Ex and guitarist Hasse Poulsen are the other members. Poulsen opens up sounding somewhere between Derek Bailey and John McLaughlin, against a background of crackly electronic sounds, deep, crumping noises like exploding shells, whispers and busy percussion. Sometimes Endresen's folk roots take her into an eerie lyricism over electronic hums, or she can sound almost bluesy over a walking bass sound and splashing cymbals. Her virtuosity at speed is astonishing, particularly when she chatters faster and faster over warped versions of regular idioms, such as Poulsen's deranged Latin-jazz chordwork. It's a real one-off band.
SPEEQ OR, Red Note CD, Julian Cowley, The Wire august 2007
Drummer Mark Sanders, bassist Luc Ex and electric guitarist Hasse Poulsen are joined by Norwegian singer Sidsel Endresen for this curios yet excellent live set. Endresen’s dry staccato chatter and alien babble are fully atuned to the trio’s prickly, lean and restless improvising. There’s rmarkable consistency here, despite occasional turns from detached abstraction to more regular rhythmic figures. Bursts of audience applause seem strangely disconnected from the four way conversatin taking place in the ensembles weird shared tongue. Or takes you somewhere unfamiliar and disorienting, and it’s an enlivening and unique experience.
Or: Live in Strasbourg
Speeq | Red Note (2007)
Speeq is a true European collaboration, comprised of innovative Norwegian vocalist Sidsel Endresen, known for her collaborations with fellow countrymen including Bugge Wesseltoft, Trygve Seim and Nils Petter Molvær; Dutch bass guitarist Luc Ex, a member of Four Walls with Phil Minton; Danish guitarist Hasse Poulsen, who has played with Joëlle Léandre and Frode Gjerstad; and British drummer Mark Sanders, who collaborated with Evan Parker and Steve Beresford.
With such impressive and varied resumes in the left-of-center fields of European jazz and improvised music scenes, an uncompromising adventure is assured. Still, Or: Live in Strasbourg, from the group’s third concert the Jazz d'Or Festival in Strasbourg, France in November, 2006—eight months after its first concert—exceeds even the wildest expectations. It is real magical gem and one of the best releases of 2007.
Endresen has developed a highly personal style of vocalization in recent years, based on short and swift syllables and phonemes that sound quite often spastic, percussive and even otherworldly. Sometimes this vocalization sound as if it is referencing the randomness and humorous Dada poetry of Kurt Switchers and Tristan Tzara, but on Merriwinkle (Jazzland, 2005) and One (Sofa Music, 2007) it left the impression of a provocative and cerebral exercise. With Speeq, Endersen’s new vocabulary sounds much more relaxed and responsive to the others’ gestures, and her idiosyncratic vocabulary gains a natural, emotional volume. A much more optimistic and democratic new Speaq, rather than a dark, Orwellian Newspeak.
On the first tracks, “Clean” and “Young,” the always attentive Poulsen, Ex and Sanders breathe new and subtle sonorities and nuances into Endresen’s warm vocal through remarkably organic, intense and trusty interplay. But as this recording progresses it sound as if Endresen is feeding them with her vocal cues in the same manner as they are attuned to her moves. The dense and busy beginning evolves into more meditative and storytelling pieces, and Endresen vocals express more moods and quite intelligible narratives, especially when she mutates syllables that sound almost as a common part of the English language.
More aggressive and distorted tones, and later free improvised segments, find their way to the mix. Poulsen uses various devices and objects on his guitar, Ex adds distorted, buzzing slaps and Sanders supplies sensitive textures, and the interplay between Endresen and the other players becomes wilder and looser. When Poulsen begins a playful, breezy Latin-tinged improvisation on “Their,” Endresen joins him midway with an inspired hypnotic and chaotic narrative of her own that spins the relaxed playing into distorted and spacious regions.
Track listing: Clean; Young; Money; Never; Heard; Small; Sound; Could; Break; Their; Stone; Faces; Apart.
Personnel: Luc Ex: bass guitar; Hasse Poulsen: guitar; Mark Sanders: drums; Sidsel Endresen: voice.
Style: Modern Jazz/Free Improvisation | Published: December 09, 2007
