i Like to Sleep

The music revolves around a core of heavy riffs, extensive improvisation pushed to its limits, and well-written melodies – a style labelled “POWERJAZZ”.

Taking their name from a Thelonious Monk quote, I Like To Sleep are three young Norwegian musicians, all 22 years old. Nicolas and Øyvind first met in high school in Trondheim before they joined up with Amund in a youth big band. It soon became apparent that they shared the same musical background centered around 70s progressive rock, classical music, jazz and improvisation. Soon after the trio was formed, first for fun, but soon with higher ambitions, they won the prestigious "Young Jazz Musicians of the Year" award in 2018.

It is with great pleasure we can introduce another new name to our roster. Taking their name from a Thelonious Monk quote, I Like To Sleep are three young Norwegian musicians, all 22 years old. Nicolas and Øyvind first met in high school in Trondheim before they joined up with Amund in a youth big band. It soon became apparent that they shared the same musical background centered around 70s progressive rock, jazz, improvisation and classical music. Soon after the trio was formed, first for fun, but soon with higher ambitions, they won the prestigious "Young Jazz Musicians of the Year" award in 2018.

In 2021, the international contemporary music festival Only Connect commissioned an interpretation from I LIKE TO SLEEP of the first movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila symphony. A project which initially led to a 15-minute piece performed at the festival, with the trio re-writing the music of Messiaen, but also rewriting the music of their own. Messiaen as a reference and compositional tool may be heard in the album for those really listening for references.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently 'Sounds and Sweet Airs - A Shakespeare Songbook' (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson's latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano's love of her art.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently 'Sounds and Sweet Airs - A Shakespeare Songbook' (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson's latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano's love of her art.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently ‘Sounds and Sweet Airs – A Shakespeare Songbook’ (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson’s latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano’s love of her art. This programme artfully blends well-known and lesser-known lieder by German and Austrian masters such as Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf with French songs by Gounod, Poulenc and Franck, as well as works by Anglo-Saxon composers such as Hubert Parry, Samuel Barber and Ivor Gurney. Female composers are not forgotten, with rarely-performed songs by Rita Strohl based on slightly risqué poems by Pierre Louÿs, music by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Kaija Saariaho – who has recently passed away – and Deborah Pritchard, whose song presented here was composed especially for Sampson. And while Leonard Bernstein’s comically cheeky song ‘I hate music’, appears to be a call not to let music take itself too seriously, Errollyn Wallen’s ‘Peace on Earth’, which concludes the album, invokes calm and encourages us to find peace, a message that seems more relevant today than ever.