Utopian Dances, Jono El Grandes 1st LPUtopian Dances (1st Jono El Grande LP, released Dec 16, 1999) by Jono El Grande Artwork By [Graphic Preparation] – Chälvôri Theyga Opest: Mixed By – Eiztenny Hopla-Hopla* 
Jono El Grande – Live In Wroclav, AvantArt Festival, Sept 26, 2010A 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
The Choko King: Insanely Nerdy details on the songs on the albumFrom 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 1. EVA’S HORSE DANCE Album(s) in which song has appeared: MONEY WILL RUIN EVERYTHING 2 date: 2008 location: Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo The musical idea underpinning this song is based on a variation on the intro theme from «Centrifugue in D Minor», off Fevergreens. It carries on throughout the entire song, from the silly swingy melody at the beginning, via the lower vocal parts (by me) in the middle, to the ridiculously fast triplet lines at the end. Most of the bass lines are derived from the bass line which is also heard in «Rapphoenß» (the version on Utopian Dances), of which you will also hear a variation in the ‘Framsy-Clams’ part of «The Choko King». In 2005 I presented this song as a birthday gift to a friend, Eva, who was obsessed with horses, and who had a horse that was also called Eva.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1997 location: Grünerløkka Lufthavn, Oslo This is one of my favorite recordings by my ’90s band Vidda (roughly, ‘The Mountain Plateau’). It was all done quite simply, using an old tape player that had a special recording function. It was all improvised, following only a few simple instructions and a little discussion, and this recording was the first and only take we ever did. We would never play it together again, though we used to run the tape as an intro as we entered the stage at the beginning of our live shows.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: FEVERGREENS date: 1999/2000? location: UNDER MY BED or LOVE PAD Here you have an electronic demo version of the song which was later released on Fevergreens. The name is a working title which I entered into the synthesizer’s computer in order to remember it more easily (it has a cha-cha-cha sort of rhythm to it). Later that year I was in Portugal, where I discovered that they spell ‘chá’ meaning ‘tea’. So from then on, that was the meaning of this tune.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1995 location: SOLVANG KOLONIHAGE Back in 1995 I was asked by my photographer buddy Per Heimly to conduct an art performance with new self-composed music for an exhibition of his. This resulted in a 14 minute suite in ten movements, which I called «Vital Requiem». The whole thing came together in just one week in a cold, tiny cottage in a community garden in Oslo, which I was borrowing from my eldest brother, having no other place to live for a month. This part opens with a high-pitched recording from the radio channel NRK P2, and concerns the preparation of a traditional Norwegian porridge.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1997 location: WILSES GT. 1 Wilses gt. 1 was a wonderful place. This apartment housed members of the bands Vidda, The Gringo Quartet and Menü Tizz Aura for several years, and functioned also as a creative meeting place for friends of the house. Vidda used this apartment for rehearsals, especially the kitchen where «Asia» was recorded, sometimes forcing the poor neighbours to call the police. «Asia» was recorded on cassette in several parts, while later (stunt-)edited by me on the mini disc recorder. This is also one of the songs that never got to the stage, yet I got the local Norwegian radio station Radio Nova to play it on air at half speed as part of an interview in 2000.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1996 location: UNDER MY BED Towards the end of the previous millenium I wrote an opera that was never performed, «A Gangrene Hangover». Unfortunately, the libretto is gone with the wind, and I hardly remember the exact track order or the entire plot. Anyway, you can read a summary as close to the written original as possible below. This tune is a fragment from one of the parts from this opera, a waltz slightly inspired of Conlon Nancarrow. Another idea in this manner led to the song «My Sexless Beloved» – heard on Utopian Dances – which in the first place also was intended as a section in «A Gangrene Hangover». In 1996, I read a newspaper article about British cattle that died of gangrene in the bowels because they had eaten grain infected with the grain disease ergot. This intrigued me, and I found out that poor farmers in the Middle Ages often died of this because they could not afford to store their grain for so long that the fungus that caused the disease died. «A Gangrene Hangover» is about a woman who live with her husband in a windmill. The windmill serves as the local areas Holy House, where the couple had put themselves in some sort of religious respect. From there they had power over their neighbours, who had come to them to get their daily bread. But the woman was self-willed, she kept the fresh grain for herself, and served the people the grain that were infected by ergot, thus killing them one by one. The opera’s storyline began, however, with all this already passed, so it was supposed that the spectator should read up on this pre-history before watching the show. But it turns out quickly that there is no more fresh corn left. The widow is forced to eat bread made of ergot infected grain, knowing that she will rot inside soon. An interesting aspect of ergot is that those who become ill from consuming it also get strong hallucinations. The woman begins to hallucinate, and she breeds up an imaginary figment of her inner dreams: the dwarf Dob’Zanga (whose name is arbitrary and meaningless) whom she falls in love with. So this is «A Gangrene Hangover». The plot then precurses in a mixture of love nonsense and trivial every-day dada – a caricatured stereotype of normal relationships – and ends with the widow collapsing in a culmination of ecstatic sexual madness. Her figment lover, Dob’Zanga, is responsible for her funeral. The last scene ends with Dob’Zanga solemnly recites a last farewell to his great love. Curtain. Musical content (from my memory):
Album(s) in which song has appeared: NEO DADA (as The Choko King) date: 1997 location: CAFÉ MIR, OSLO This is a primitive version of «The Choko King» from Neo Dada. Actually, I composed the first version of this tune in the spring of 1995, at The Conception, and it was intended for my band Menu Bizarra. I played it live with that band a couple of times, then later rehearsed it with Vidda in 1997, and then forgot about it for a few years until I revised it and added a lot of new parts, between 2005 and 2007, for The Luxury Band. It was also intended as a part of the above-mentioned opera. The words in the middle of this song say:
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1996 location: UNDER MY BED
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PHANTOM STIMULANCE date: 1996 location: UNDER MY BED This is a variation on the song by more or less the same title, «Pongery In Evention (As In Owe Egons Dreams)», as heard on Phantom Stimulance. Owe is an old friend of mine who creates art from relics and precious metals, and who once talked about moving into a lighthouse. Today he does. In 1995, Owe Egon Grandics told me that he had dreamt about me making a composition with the preposterous name ‘Pongery In Evention’. And so I did. This is an unfinished second version of the song, intentionally made as a part of the opera «A Gangrene Hangover».
Album(s) in which song has appeared: BLÅROLLINGER II (various artists, dBut Records – 2009) date: 1996 location: UNDER MY BED recording medium: 4 track Porta 07 recording engineer: JONO EL GRANDE musicians: JONO EL GRANDE (Kawai FS 610 synthesizer) In 1996 I decided to honor my Norwegian compositional inspirer Arne Nordheim with a gift of music. So I composed this song, originally entitled «A Rheotactic Phony Nail» (a title I made up while leafing through a dictionary, in the hope that Arne might conjure up some rare images: rheotaxis = ‘movement of an organism in response to a current of fluid or air’), along with some other tracks (the only other song I can remember from that tape was «Wheelchair Abuser Scat», which you’ll hear later on this album). A couple of days later, Arne gave me a call, and then sent me a letter. He told me he thought my stuff was pretty out there. He also told me that he had used to live in the same apartment house as me, in fact right across the hallway, a decade or so before I lived there. Arne liked this tune a lot, he said, and so this is in honor of his memory.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: UTOPIAN DANCES date: 1996 location: UNDER MY BED recording medium: 4 track Porta 07 recording engineer: JONO EL GRANDE Even though this melody was released on Utopian Dances, the present version would seem to be an almost entirely separate piece of work. The released version, as it appears on Utopian Dances, was composed in 1999 as a combination of several musical ideas from 1994 – 95 (the first, primitive idea was the second part of the suite «Vital Requiem»). It has been performed only once before a live audience, with the Jono El Grande Orchestra #1, at Volapük in 2000, and was left out of the repertoire of the 2000 – 01 concerts. After several requests from the audience to play this song live, however, it was rearranged in 2004, and performed by The Jono El Grande Orchestra #5. In 2006 it was extended with a new composition squeezed in between two parts in the middle of the song. Jono El Grande & The Luxury Band performed this version in the 2006 – 07 concerts.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1997 location: Endless Studio This song hails from the same recording session as «Opest», from Utopian Dances. It was written by Aisha Fretox and myself in early 1997, and the lyrics were concocted with the aid of an old, German phrasebook. It is an absurd text about a lonely guy who experiences an inner struggle on X-mas eve. He is idle and broke, and eventually he realizes that the only solution for him is to Pfote-brei
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1998 location: UNDER MY BED In 1998 I composed an electronic string quintet in six movements. The first
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED Simply something I made in order to fill the emptiness I felt on a lonely night in my apartment in Schønings gt. 34. The keyboard “melody” was improvised on top of the riff. I then transcribed its rhythm, and improvised a second melody with the acoustic guitar on top of that.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: FEVERGREENS At the end of Fevergreens there’s a song called «Epilogue – Encore», which Side B 1. UTOPIAN DANCE Album(s) in which song has appeared: UTOPIAN DANCES & PHANTOM date: 1995 location: THE CONCEPTION This is the original version of a song released both on Utopian Dances and Phantom Stimulance. This original version is very different from those previously released. The melodic theme (which you can hear at 1:06 – 1:17 and 2:24 – 2:34 on both the Phantom Stimulance and Utopian Dances versions) was initially composed as an interlude in a small piece for two Spanish guitars called «Playa des Palma», back in 1992. It was then rearranged to accommodate an additional third guitar; which is the version you’ll hear on this album. In 1996, the composition was completely reworked as a theme for a solo dance performance, with instructions included in the score. This version was then altered slightly and considered for the opera «A Gangrene Hangover». Neither version exists as anything but a hand-written score, although a few demo fragments have been recorded with the Kawai FS 610 on the 4-track Porta 07. The following version was a revision of the Gangrene version, recorded in 1997 with the Gibson acoustic, percussion and the Kawai FS 610 on the 4-track Porta 07. This is the version featured on the Utopian Dances album. The song has later been arranged for many different line-ups of the Luxury Band, and in 2004 I rearranged the original guitar trio for trombone, soprano saxophone and xylophone, as it featured as an intro to the new version (you can stream this somewhere here on www.jonoelgrande.com).
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1995 location: SOLVANG KOLONIHAGE
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1996 or ’97 location: UNDER MY BED
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1996 or ’97 location: UNDER MY BED These two tracks belong together, but I composed and named the «The Lobotomized Healer’s Comeback» first (the scenario just sounded good). Since I made the comeback first, I felt I had to make the rise and fall as an intro. On both pieces the idea is clear: the riff is simple and stupid, and the melody is advanced and stupid. Now, lobotomize yourself and heal the world with your dance!
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1997 location: UNDER MY BED This is a montage of different musical ideas that had led nowhere by themselves, so it will be heard live some time, as at present I am trying to make something out of it (autumn 2011). The antepenultimate and last theme was inspired by the theme at 3:32 in the Boulez-conducted version of Edgard Varèse’s «Arcana».
Album(s) in which song has appeared: NEO DADA date: 16/9-2006 location: Parkteatret, Oslo Simply a live version of the kazoo section from «The Choko King».
Album(s) in which song has appeared: UTOPIAN DANCES, PHANTOM date: JUNE 2003 location: MUSIKKLOFTET STUDIO, OSLO «Türbø Meuz» (also known as «Moon-strictly In Love With A Figment Foetus») is one of the most heavily reworked compositions in Jono El Grande ś repertoire, and has remained a work in progress since its inception. It has been performed, rehearsed and recorded in approximately twelve different versions. In 1996, it was intended as a part of the opera «A Gangrene Hangover« (The Ergot Opera) with lyrics (in the original libretto incorrectly spelled ‘Moonstricktly in Love With a Figment Foetus’), which was never rehearsed or performed. The original title, «Türbø Meuz», was inspired by the presence of a large PC mouse which had the words ‘Turbo Mouse’ printed on it. The melody was composed on an acoustic guitar in the room in which the mouse had been placed on a table, back in 1994. That same year, new parts were added, and the first complete version was world-premiered wi th the band Menu Bizarra at Volapük on 29 Jan 1995. In this band’s second show three months later at the same venue, a 7/8 vamp was added. On top of this, the tenor saxophone and guitar played a unison melody later to become «Rumba For A Slightly Excited Ape», released on Fevergreens. The phrase ‘Türbø Meuz’ was supposed to be pronounced with a French-German accent – [tyhR-beu myeuhz], and provided the name for the character played by Owe Egon Grandics at this performance (which was videotaped, now soon to be digitalized). Owe Egon Grandics ́ character would later appear as a part of Menü Tizz Aura #2’s performances: in the composition «Sentrifugalkraft», he recites the phrase twice in a southern Swedish accent: “Türbø Meuz, Türbø Meuz, jag är fri och ren, hurra! (‘I am free and clean/pure, hooray’)”. Later, an entirely new version was made, based only on the first original melody. This is the “pop” version on Utopian Dances. In 2006 the first movement of the original suite was revised for the ensemble Poing, and for strings. In 2007 this version was rewritten for small orchestra as the first of a total of four movements with the name «Oslo City Suite». The second movement was a short orhestral variant of the Utopian Dances version, and both the third and fourth movements were rewritten variations of parts in the original 1995 suite. The last movement was then rehearsed with The Luxury Band, and recorded and released on the album Neo Dada. The complete, absurd development of this tune is listed here.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 16/9-2006 location: Parkteatret, Oslo An improvised live performance with The Witch and the Luxury Band, squeezed into the last section of «Three Variations On A Mainstream Neurosis».
Album(s) in which song has appeared: MONEY WILL RUIN EVERYTHING 2 date: 2005 (composed) location: BIRKELUNDEN (composed) The same tune as the first on this album. A shorter version of this recording
Album(s) in which song has appeared: UTOPIAN DANCES, PHANTOM date: 1996(?) location: UNDER MY BED See the insanely nerdy details on the other version above. This version is number three in the complete list of versions of the composition.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED date: 1998 location: STENERSEN MUSEUM, OSLO There is a link between this song and «Good Gracious» on Fevergreens, and «Double-Edged Triplets» on Phantom Stimulance. The original idea was based on a unison of the bass line with the sprechgesang text line “Åssen går’e me’ morra ri’a?” (lit. “How’s yo’ motha?”). I composed a second voice for a synthesizer version, but that part is not included in this live version with the band Vidda.
Album(s) in which song has appeared: NEO DADA date: 2008 location: Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo This composition started off by stealing fragments from the pianoriff in Frank Zappa’s «Music For Electric Violin And Low-Budget Orchestra» intro. The rest of the composition is just hard work and stream-of-conciousness combined. However, the synthesizer solo at the end was written, not improvised, and a few snippets of it were actually ripped off Frankie’s classic ’79 Inca Roads solo, heard as «Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar», and then transposed to match the key. The vamp is in 3/4, so that establishes a link to Zappa’s «Holiday In Berlin, Full Blown» solos as well. We recorded two versions, and this one never made it to the album. The words are meaningless, so don’t bother trying to translate them. They’re included just for their musical effect: List of bands: Jono El Grande’s solo albums: List of composition studios: All songs composed by Jono El Grande except «Vidda-Dixie» by Jono El Grande, Stølen Bjerkaker, Brække and Skjeldal, «Asia» by Jono El Grande, Stølen Bjerkaker and Skjeldal and «Pfote-Brei» by Jono El Grande and Skjeldal. Mastered by Tom Kvålsvoll at Strype Audio. Cover art by Christer Karlstad. Sleeve design by Martin Kvamme. Most tracks recorded in alternative fidelity. This album is recommended to be played loud in the car with open windows, while driving slowly through boring suburban areas. For even more insanely nerdy details on Jono El Grande please visit www.facebook.com/NorwegianComposer A special thanks to our dedicated audience, Tom Kvålsvoll for minor, but useful, title ideas, Dagfinn Hobæk for correcting small details in the liner notes with academic pickiness, Christer Karlstad for extraordinary cover paintings and Sverre Sætre for baking the original Choko King chocolate cake. Jono El Grande, Oslo, 2006 – 2011
Jono El Grande Zappanale Concert 2011 Download
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. Personnel on this show:
Interview from AlarmPressThe 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.
AP: According to your label, only one song on your newest record, Phantom Stimulance, is newly composed, with the rest being unreleased live favorites, compiled to commemorate your 10 years as a bandleader and 15 as a composer. Why did you decide to record these songs to celebrate this occasion? JEG: There are two brand-new compositions on the album, not one — “Borrelia Boogie” and “Rise Of The Baseless Press-Base Toy.” The other songs are completely rearranged versions of songs that never reached an album and new arrangements of earlier-released songs that have evolved so much on stage during the years that they deserved to be released again, with new titles. “Live favorites” is a term that the record company came up with. Even if this record is presented as an anniversary, it is nevertheless the music that is most important. Always. AP: Why hadn’t the songs on Phantom Stimulance been recorded previously? Were they more suited to live performance than the studio? Are there any live favorites still yet to be recorded? JEG: I am a composer who likes to develop compositions over time at live shows by adding new themes and parts to them. My working process is very often like this: I write the basic scores at home, then the band rehearses the music, and then we play the material live and mold it until I feel that it is ready to be recorded. And I never know exactly when each song is ready. The reason why these tracks haven’t been recorded previously is that, on earlier albums, there were other compositions that I felt were more ready than ones on Phantom Stimulance. You may call them “live favorites” — to me these tunes were the hard ones, the ones that I had to work a little extra with to make them worthy to be immortalized on an album. We used 40 to 60 tracks on each song. “La Dolce Vidda” contains 10 drum tracks, I think. It was actually quite the same with Neo-Dada. Some compositions there date back to the ’90s. And to the last question: yes, there will be more “live favorites” to be released in the future. I just have to compose them first. AP: There were a lot of strings on Neo-Dada, but they seem to have disappeared on Phantom Stimulance, which instead features more hard-edged electric guitar. Is this because you composed the songs before Neo-Dada’s addition of strings? Do you plan to continue to use strings in future compositions? JEG: To the first question: no. Actually, Neo-Dada was composed for a band without strings, but during the recording sessions, I felt that something was missing. I had never worked with strings before, and, suddenly, it was about time. I put the whole session on hold, went home and rewrote a lot of the piano parts for violins, viola, and cello, gathered a batch of string players, rehearsed, and then went back to the studio. I’m very happy for that extra effort. On Phantom Stimulance, I wanted a harder sound, so I chose to skip the strings in that occasion._ To the second question: yes, the strings will return, but not on the next album, which will be a collection of old electronic solo stuff, demos, audience tapes, and album leftovers. But you’ll hear the strings on the next [album] after that, which will be a large project with about 20 musicians. AP: Have you been writing any new compositions alongside the recording of Phantom Stimulance? JEG: Yes, indeed. I compose every time that I have the possibility to do it, at home and elsewhere. I use my voice-memo app on my iPhone a lot, and then I develop the themes in Sibelius (a popular music-notation program). AP: The musicianship on your records is astounding. How did you form The Luxury Band? Is the lineup fixed or does the personnel change between albums? JEG: The band was formed in spring of 2000, and it was the result of an art-rock-band idea that I’d tried to incorporate for years. The first time was with a group called Menü Bizarra, which held only three shows back in 1995; then with Grande Corpse in 1996, which only rehearsed and recorded some songs and never performed live; then with Vidunderlige Vidda (Wonderful Mountain Plateau) in 1997-’98, which actually reached some local success in Oslo. In 1999, I composed mostly on a workstation synthesizer and performed solo. Some of this material was released on Utopian Dances. Then, in 2000, I formed The Jono El Grande Orchestra by starting with a saxophone player that I knew. I called a long list of musicians that he named as potential members until I found a batch that I thought was fit for the project. Every once in a while, some members have quit to get a steady job in a symphony orchestra or to focus on their own solo career. I recruit new musicians by recommendations from existing members. AP: You’ve previously stated some obvious influences on your music — Frank Zappa, King Crimson — but I was often reminded of Mr. Bungle and related bands upon hearing your work. Which contemporary artists inspire or interest you? JEG: There are a few bands that I find interesting on the avant-garde scene today, like my Norwegian colleagues PING, elephant 9, and Phaedra, and Finnish [band] Alamailmaan Vasarat. Probably a few more, but I can’t remember them. As you assume, I occasionally listen to bands such as Mr. Bungle, Primus, Secret Chiefs 3, and Naked City, in addition to the avant-garde heroes of the ’60s and ’70s. Right now, I listen a lot to the bands of the Canterbury Scene and the original RIO [Rock in Opposition] bands. AP: In the early ’90s, you were part of several temporary concept bands, like Black Satan and Pez Dispensers, which would only perform once. Do you still toy with band concepts or do you plan to only record as Jono El Grande? JEG: Well, maybe Black Satan will resurrect in a new form someday; time will tell. But right now, I only plan the mentioned two releases as Jono El Grande, for 2011 and 2012. AP: You’re known for your idiosyncratic live shows. What role do you think live performance plays in a band’s identity? JEG: I think too many musicians tend to look too predictable, and that matters whether you’re playing hip hop, jazz, rock, or any conventional genre. It would help a lot of bands that look uniformed to be a little smart with their stage identity. Yet an image must be built from an authentic artistic idea, and your visual appearance should be an extension of that. In some occasions, the natural extension is just a little distinction, or being, like you say, idiosyncratic.
German reviewDer Künstlername, dessen sich der teilweise in New York lebende Norweger Jon Seine neueste, am 19.2. erscheinende CD besticht durch einen dichten Sound Gerd Harthus für 8.2.2011
Insanely nerdy details on Phantom Stimulance (with lots of non-album versions on streamable audio)
Interview, ProgArchives.Com (by T. Fuglesteg)
Original interview by Torodd Fuglesteg at ProgArchives.com. Jono El Grande is a colourful Norwegian artist who up to now is most known for his friendship with King Harald’s son in law. I discovered his name in our artists/band database and purchased two of his albums by almost an accident. It was therefore with substantial skepticism I first listened to his Neo-Dada album. What I discovered is an excellent album who deserve a bigger audience among fans of avant garde, art rock and Frank Zappa. I got in touch with Jono El Grande for his story and an update on his activities. TF: Your background is a bit special in the Norwegian standards. You became infamous/famous as one of Ari Behn’s (the husband of Princess Martha, the Norwegian king’s oldest daughter) friends and therefore almost a member of the extended royal family in Norway. Hence some attention from the Norwegian gutter press. At the same time, your music is high quality. How do you deal with this dualism in your life and public profile? JONO: I concentrate on making music and art-related projects, which keep me too busy to worry about that. TF: Your friend in the royal family have referred to yourself and his other artists friends as the “the new wine”. I guess this is a reference to the generation of bohemian artists and authors in Norway who gave us Edvard Munch, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg. Do you see parallels here or what do you put in the expression “the new wine”? JONO: Well, your guess is wrong. The New Wine was originally a visionary poem, written and read aloud at Theatercafeen in Oslo by Ari Behn and the poet Bertrand Besigye back in 1993. The poem was about turning yourself against the institutional establishment, and had nothing to do with the old bohemians. Later The New Wine became our name, almost like Rock in Opposition, first the name of a movement, then the name of a genre. TF: Do you also regard yourself as a bohemian in the old Kristiana anno 1870s mould? JONO: No.
TF: You were involved in a lot of projects before you found your own voice. Your first album was Utopiske Danser/Utopian Dances from 1999. Please tell us more about this album. JONO: Utopian Dances is a collection of recordings, most of them made under my bed (an attic bed) in a moldy bachelor flat, between 1995 and 1999. The tracks “Türbø Meuz”, “Rapphoenß”, “Chai-Niese Bloöezé”, “Ms Bezerra” and “Beyond Pornography Theme” was recorded entirely with an Ensonic Workstation synthesizer. “Utopian Dance”, “Vital Requiem Finale”, “Instant Milex” and “Patch-shaped Dance of Heads” were recorded on a Tascam Porta 07 4-track recorder, using a cheap Kawai FS 610 keyboard, guitars, a broken alto clarinet, a cheap Russian accordion and a lot of different sounds made with utilities from my kitchen. “My Sexless Beloved” was recorded on my first Mac, an ugly lump named Macintosh Performa 6400 in 1996. All of these tracks were recorded at my old bachelor apartment in Oslo. “Opest” was recorded in Endless Studio in Oslo with the power-artrock-combo Vidunderlige Vidda, a band you will be hearing more historical recordings from in the future. “Finnish Dance of Cysts”, were spontaneously composed on a multi-track organ and recorded in an instrument store in Helsinki, Finland. A couple of months after releasing Utopian Dances, I formed The Jono El Grande Orchestra, which developed to become the band you hear today. Some veterans are still going strong there, while a great number has been changed for the last ten years. Through a decade about 35 musicians have been involved in this band project. TF: Your second album Fevergreens from 2003 really got people’s attention. Please tell us more about this album. JONO: Fevergreens was the first recording to be released with The Jono El Grande Orchestra, playing 14 compositions made between 1996 and 2001. The term ‘fevergreens’ is a word play, meaning feverish evergreens, and both the sound and the musical structures reflects that. To me this album was a big leap forward from Utopian Dances in some ways, since it contained musicians and not just myself. There was a lot of work to get there, resulting in a release concert in Oslo Concert Hall. But on the other side Utopian Dances was unique with its pure naïve lo-fi sound.
TF: Your most recent album is Neo-Dada from 2009, which really positively surprised me. Please tell us more about this album. JONO: Neo Dada contains compositions originally written between 1996 and 2006, some of them revised several times before they were rehearsed with The Luxury Band, the re-named version of a more electrified Jono El Grande Orchestra since 2005. The oldest composition on the album is the first section of “Three Variations On A Mainstream Neurosis”, originally a song played by Vidda in 1997. The freshest part is actually the second section on the same track. This part consists of a faded in cacophony of improvised soprano saxophones. Those were all six different takes of the solo recorded on top of the 6/4-beat on the last section. These unused solo takes were extracted, merged together and processed with a long fade in. And the last section (the 6/4 free-jazz disco) was also a separate song once, originally written for a TV series on NRK in 2003, as a much shorter version with lyrics. You can say this is a good example on how I like to work. A musical piece is always in constant change, I both re-arrange songs and re-title them constantly. Neo Dada also reflects my debut as a string arranger. During the studio sessions, I felt that something was missing. Strings. So I paused the whole session, went home and re-arranged a bunch of voices. It cost me a lot of extra effort and some cash, but I’m very glad I did that. The results are really satisfying, thanks to the wonderful string players. TF: You are currently working on the fourth album. What can we expect from this album? JONO: The next record will be released November 6 2010 and is an anniversary album celebrating both the 10th anniversary of the band (premiered 27. March 2000), and the 15th anniversary of me as a stage performer and art rock composer (premiered 29. January 1995). The track list contains new versions of previously released compositions, revised versions of unreleased songs that we have been performing on stage both with The Luxury Band and my old band Vidda, and some brand new tracks. The most distinctive change here though is the sound, made by Kai Andersen in his legendary studio Athletic Sound in Halden. This album will be much wilder and vivid than any of the first three ones. I have been recording approximately 40 instrument- and vocal tracks on each song, and it has been like trying to discover how much liquid a sponge can absorb before it starts dripping. The album will contain 11 songs that all segues into the next. There will be no breathing spaces. Other new stuff is that I do all of the vocal tracks, I play some percussion parts and a xylophone solo, and I play several duo- and multi-track guitar solos. Ole-Henrik Moe guests with his saw. Some say that saw provides a timbre you should be very careful to use as color effect in music, but I have used it on 9 of the 11 songs. Actually, this sound sort of makes a red thread through the whole album. TF: How is your writing and creative processes? JONO: Intense, delightful and whimsy. TF: Outside the duck pond called Norway, your music has been compared with Frank Zappa. You named your 2009 album Neo-Dada in reference to dadaism. But how would you describe your own music ? JONO: Vitalistic art rock. TF: You are working with Rune Grammofon and your albums is widely available. Do you earn a living from your music or do you have a more mundane income source? JONO: I have a steady job to pay for Jon Håtuns bills, while my music pays Jono El Grandes bills. TF: Besides of the new album, what is your plans for this and next year? JONO: We have a big release concert at the 7th of December, at Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, and this will be recorded on their 24 track mixer. We’ll see what comes out of that. Then I plan to record some compositions with the avantgarde trio Poing for a later release. I will also record a large and complex orchestra piece later on, which I am revising at the moment. But before that, after my fourth record, I will release a limitied editioned album with historical recordings on my own record company, probably in April 2011 or so. The artist Christer Karlstad is painting the cover. TF: To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? JONO: Yes, here is a pre-millenium biography on Jono El Grande: 1987 1989 – 1992 1991 – 1992 1994 – 1995 1994 January 29, 1995 Fall 1995 1996 1996 Autumn 1996 1997 1997 1998 January 1999 January 1999
Latest news on upcoming albumOfficial 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. Second session, with strings, keyboards, additional percussion, guitar and additional vocals, will be recorded 10 – 12 Sept 2010. Mixing session is planned 17 – 19 Sept 2010. Musicians:
Set list, 24 Oct 2009, Blå, Oslo
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