Nils Frahn

Ex Grin member Lofgren’s 1977 double live album for A&M Records. Lofgren’s stage shows were always a high point and this recording captured the moment well, featuring such favourites as ‘Keith Don’t Go’ and ‘I Came To Dance’. The album charted on both sides of the Atlantic. Up until the Covid lockdowns, Lofgren had been busy gigging and recording. Digitally remastered.

When Nils Lofgren released his first solo album in 1975, most fans were expecting a set confirming his guitar hero status, and more than a few listeners were vocally disappointed with the more laid-back and song-oriented disc Lofgren delivered. However, with the passage of time Nils Lofgren has come to be regarded as an overlooked classic, and with good reason – Lofgren has rarely been in better form on record as a songwriter, vocalist, musician, and bandleader…

"No Mercy," with special effects recorded at Madison Square Garden, has the sentiment of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer." The double entendre being the rock musician oftentimes works on the same stage as the fighter, of course, punching away in the ring of life. Nils Lofgren is a veteran who has performed with Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and so many others, working here with producer Bob Ezrin who helped create Pink Floyd's The Wall. As with any great artist, Ezrin brings in his various contacts which color the recordings he makes, insuring a product that is as much the producer's as it is Nils Lofgren's. Dick Wagner co-wrote the hits "Only Women Bleed" and "You And Me" with Alice Cooper…

Thirty tracks from three generations of musicians marking thirty years of ACT, with Nils Landgren as driving force. Not just a retrospective, but above all an insight into the present and future of the discovery label “in the Spirit of Jazz”.

After aging the past 24 years, Nils Henrik Asheim’s work “Salmenes bok” (“The Book of Psalms”) has now been released. The hour-long work was written for the dedication of Oslo Cathedral’s new Ryde & Berg organ in 1998. It features both organs in the cathedral (with Kåre Nordstoga on the choir organ and Asheim playing the main organ) to create a surround sound around the choir singing 21 texts from the biblical Psalms in a rich tonal language equally rich in contrast. The result is a unique listening experience, a magical fusing of voices and organ.

The music of Norwegian trumpeter/Nu Jazz progenitor, Nils Petter Molvaer, has always been cinematic. Call it music for a non-existent movie or a film of the mind, Molvaer's albums, beginning with the groundbreaking Khmer (ECM, 1997), have always been about aural landscapes evocative of highly personal imagery and plenty of club-ready grooves. Even in performance, the lighting provided by Tord "Prince of Darkness" Knudsen is intended to provoke the imagination rather than focus attention on the musicians. It's no surprise, then, that Molvaer has been recruited to provide music for film. His score for the 2005 French film Edy already saw limited release on Molvaer's Sula imprint the same year. Re-Vision culls four pieces from Edy and, by combining them with music from two other films—the 2007 German film Hoppet and 1999 Norwegian documentary Frozen Heart—and one non-soundtrack piece, fashions a continuous 46-minute suite that stands independently as yet another highly visual piece, incorporating Molvaer's ever-expanding frames of reference. Re-Vision is also Molvaer's first release in years to not primarily feature members of his touring band, but guitarist Eivind Aarset remains a fundamental part of its overall soundscape.

This recording presents Kaija Saariaho’s works for choir, a cappella and with electronics, and displays her virtuosity in the treatment of texts, which she endows with the full range of verbal expression. At least one of these works is also a discographic premières.

This might well be the best Funk Unit that Nils Landgren has had gathered around him since 2010: technically outstanding, this is a group of team players who combine well with a great groove connection. James Brown meets Parliament meets Crusaders meets Funk Unit: that's one way you could describe the musical concept on "Teamwork". It is pure party feeling, the notes whirl coolly through the ranks, superb horn sets alternate with ecstatic solos, dance beats, smooth vocals and strong melodies, but there is also time for elegance and heartfelt blues. "Teamwork" is all that and then some, played by a dream team of sweat-inducing funk workers with soul in their blood."I felt that Funk Unit had so much more to give," recalls team captain Landgren, whose funk formation still shows no signs of fatigue.

Spectrum Music, a British division of PolyGram devoted to budget-priced compilations of material from the major label's vaults, is responsible for this CD-length collection drawn from the fourth Grin album, 1973's Gone Crazy (the other three were on Spindizzy and now are owned by Sony), and bandleader Nils Lofgren's first five solo albums: Nils Lofgren (1975), Cry Tough (1976), I Came to Dance (1977), the live Night After Night (1977), and Nils (1979), all of which were released originally on A&M Records. Since no chart singles emerged from these LPs, there isn't any objective criterion for what might constitute the best of them, though a subjective consensus of Grin/Lofgren fans no doubt would agree with the inclusion of the Keith Richards tribute "Keith Don't Go (Ode to the Glimmer Twin)," "Back It Up," and "The Sun Hasn't Set on This Boy Yet," all from Nils Lofgren.