A mastered mixboard recording of our concert at the AvantArt Festival in Wroclav, Poland, Sept 26, 2010, is now streamable – enjoy! Mastering by Tom Kvålsvoll at Strype Audio.

Jono El Grande – Live In Wroclav, AvantArt Festival, Sept 26, 2010 by Jono El Grande

From the numbered 300-copy LP version’s inner sleeve. Note that following liner notes are not available with the CD version. On the other hand, that one has a bonus track included instead – just to force you to buy both!

Side A

An audio recording of our German concert of 2011 is now finally available and may be downloaded at the wonderful forum of Zappateers.

Unmastered recording from the mixer.

The off-kilter art rock of Norwegian bandleader, composer, singer, guitarist, and kazoo player Jono El Grande is like candy to fans of Frank Zappa and whimsical, progressive rock. In his 10 years of playing with The Luxury Band (née The Jono El Grande Orchestra), he has released four albums, including the multi-layered Neo-Dada in 2009 and the raucous Phantom Stimulance this winter. Though he has enjoyed success in his native Norway, Jono’s delightfully eccentric music isn’t yet as well known overseas. Here he opens up about composing, why there’s no such thing as a “live favorite,” and how songs can take more than a decade to record.

Der Künstlername, dessen sich der teilweise in New York lebende Norweger Jon

Andreas Håtun bedient, ist Programm: Jono El Grande ist ein Künstler, der

1. Borrelia Boogie

Original interview by Torodd Fuglesteg at ProgArchives.com.

Concert in Wroclaw, Poland, 26 Sept 2010.

Official Jono El Grande album #4 is planned to be released Nov / Dec 2010.

First session with basic tracks, percussion, vocals and brass section was successfully recorded by Kai Andersen at Athletic Sound, Halden, Norway, 28 June – 3 July 2010.

^{Photo: Eigil Korsager}

Clöze Ÿp

Read Google translated version in original context

NEW PIECE FOR STRING QUINTET:

The Skin Eating Witch

Jono El Grande is raping a Bb clarinet on this legendary clip with his band Vidunderlige Vidda (‘the wonderful mountain plateau’) back in 1997. It is a one track recording from a rehearsal at Grünerløkka Lufthavn, and the song is completely improvised by the band. The guy dressed as a witch on the picture is Sjur Skjeldal, who usually played the drums. On this track he played on Jonos Fernandes guitar. The other musicians are Stein Stølen Bjerkaker on bass and Øyvind Brække on trombone.

«Sono ormai rari i gruppi che abbiano la possibilità – forse anche la voglia – di provare parecchio per affrontare con precisione e disinvoltura la pagina scritta; ancor meno se parliamo di organici dal settetto in su e di partiture piene di metri composti, ardite soluzioni armoniche, assetti mutevoli, cambi frequenti. Figurarsi poi se a comporle è uno stravagante autodidatta che le porta in scena con gusto beffardo dell’assurdo ed è noto in patria per i propri cappelli, per torte e gemelli da camicia a lui intitolati e perché padrino della figlia della principessa Märtha Louise. Con tutto ciò, la musica potrebbe essere mero contorno e invece vibra di fantasia e originalità, pur senza nascondere l’influenza di Zappa (e dei suoi padri putativi Stravinskij e Varèse) su certe figurazioni melodiche, sul ruolo della marimba e sullo spirito sempre divertito. Impronte magmiane sono state rilevate da molta critica, mentre agli Henry Cow indicati dallo stesso Jono si potrebbero aggiungere altri gruppi di quell’area come Univers Zero (con un uso del fagotto forse più affine al suo) o Stormy Six (per il modo di inserire il violino nella scrittura) e soprattutto gli svedesi Samla Mammas Manna, il cui tipo di umorismo musicale (prossimità geoculturali?) viene più volte alla mente.» – Achilli

Musica Jazz (It)

…this fall. The exact date will be announced soon.

«Norway’s Jono El Grande wears his musical influences on his sleeve and a grand Zappaesque moustache on his top lip. He’s a self-confessed devotee of Frank Zappa, and Neo Dada has the same in yer face virtuosity and invention that typified the latter’s take on rock. «Ballet Morbido In A Dozen Tiny Movements» covers everything: nonsensical vocalising, frequent time signature changes, disconnected shifts to classical interludes and, of course, seemingly endless outbreaks of xylophone playing. But Neo Dada is far more than pastiche or tribute. The heavy riffing guitar on «Neo Dada» itself and «Three Variations On A Mainstream Neurosis» drag art rock into the present. His reputation in his native land owes much to dada-like performance, but he exuberance transfers clearly to the recordings.»

The Wire (UK)

^{«Jono El Grande is a sparky Norwegian composer whose music is as uncategorisable as it comes. But where his earlier album Fevergreens was obsessively in thrall to his eclectic influences (Zappa, Captain Beefheart), Neo Dada sounds much more confident, exuberant, artful and bloody-minded. This is intricate music, and the musicians sound as if they’re having a ball regardless of what anyone might think, rather like the classical equivalent of Millwall supporters. Despite bonkers titles such as Ballet Morbido in a Dozen Tiny Movements and Three Variations On a Mainstream Neurosis, Jono El Grande makes loud, clattering and unneurotic instrumental music, with the odd bit of cod-opera singing and Circulus-like medieval prog. Oslo City Suite also features some outstanding rock bassoon-playing by Embrik Snerte, another name to watch.»}

This is the kind of album you could stow away in a time capsule only for the generations to come to be baffled that it ever existed. Neo Dada is an aptly titled piece of modern compositional fusion that chops and changes between heavy duty prog-jazz, chamber music for strings and Frank Zappa-esque mutant pop. Jono El Grande follows his nearly-as-deranged Fevergreens album of 2003 with this impressively scaled-up sequel. Jono takes the role of composer, band leader, arranger and producer on Neo Dada, leaving much of the playing to an orchestra of followers faced with the daunting prospect of having to detangle their way through a barrage of ideas. Any given track presents a slew of manic identity shifts – take for example ‘Oslo Coty Suite’: at one stage electric guitar and violin shadow each other impeccably through a tricky modal solo, only for the jolting Henry Cow-isms to be halted by a string motif (with a whiff of Saint-Saens’ ‘Danse Macabre’ about it) steering the composition in a different direction. There’s more incredible string work to be found on ‘Your Mother Eats Like A Playpus’, a gleefully complex piece whose pranksterish title hardly reflects the level of craft and toil that informs the score and its execution. Highlights and ear-befuddling thrills are never in short supply on Neo Dada, but ‘Ballet Morbido In A Dozen Tiny Movements’ warrants a special mention; it shifts from honky-tonk piano riffing (as if it were a silent film soundtrack) into Jethro Tull-style baroque folk via romantic string quartets, playful 17th century harpsichord outings, analogue synth flourishes and very, very strange vocal exercises. All this takes place within eight minutes, perfectly illustrating the exhausting intricacy of this album and its manifold twists and turns. Marvellous and ridiculous in equal measure.

On the new release Blårollinger (avantgarde music for kids with various artists) from dBut Redords Jono El Grande contributes with the lo-fi electronic composition “Ode til Arne Nordheim I – III” (“Ode to Arne Nordheim I – III”).

Video clip