We are very much looking forward to release the debut album of the piano trio Moskus in the autumn. The album was recorded in the legendary Atlantis studio in Stockholm in January and it sounds great. February 18th the band will play a showcase at by:Larm presented by Bugge Wesseltoft at Victoria/Nasjonal Jazzscene, Oslo.

"Seven tracks of crepuscular intensity that combine a love for complex but driving rhythms and the free structure and experimentation for which Norwegian jazz is known. Flower Power sounds like a music box malfunctioning as it falls down a grand but squeaky wooden staircase – a recommendation, as it happens – and Monkey could be a Lalo Schifrin soundtrack stripped of all but its percussion and sound effects. Piratman, full of cymbal splashes and eerie sounds, is particularly effective, a distant cousin of Moon Over Morphosa, the 2004 collaboration between sometime Stooges drummer Toby Dammit and Bad Seeds drummer Thomas Wydler. Overall, it’s confusing, sometimes creepy, with anthems entirely absent, but it’s also an enlightening reminder of how versatile a simple drum kit can be."

Read the full review here.

Erland Dahlens solo debut album "Rolling Bomber" has been released in Norway now and the initial reviews are great! The album is due for release elsewhere in February. Erland will do a release concert in Kulturkirken Jacob in Oslo February 24.

Here is a preview from drummer Erland Dahlen´s solo debut album "Rolling Bomber" that will be released internationally next month. Erland has contributed to more than 130 albums, and is maybe best known as the drummer in Nils Petter Molværs new powertrio. The album is available from the HUBRO store allready now.

Mats Eilertsen´s great album SkyDive has been nominated for a Spellemann, the Norwegian Grammy, in the jazz category. Congratulations!

February sees the release of Scent of Soils debut album om CD and LP. The album was released in Norway in December 2012 to great critical acclaim. Scent of Soil is a new and powerfull band put together by saxophone player Tore Brunborg (Mats Eilertsen, Tord Gustavsen, Masqualero, Manu Katché) and singer Kirsti Huke.

The self titulated debut album is available as DL/CD/LP and can be bought from the HUBRO shop allready now.

Mats Eilertsen´s "Sky Dive" and Ketil Bjørnstad´s "Early Piano Music" are both on All About Jazz journalist John Kelman´s "Best releases of 2011" list. Journalist Eyal Hareuveni included Huntsville´s "For flowers, cars and merry wars" on his list.

There was a brilliant review of 1982´s second album "Pintura" in The Guardian two days before Christmas. Journalist John Fordham concluded his review stating that the album offers: "astonishingly resourceful sound-painting for such a small group". Read the full review here.

1982´s "Pintura" is number 6 on journalist Johannes Cornell in the big Swedish paper DN´s list of best releases from 2011.
Here´s the complete list (in swedish)
And here´s the his review of the album (also in swedish)

November 28 the trio 1982´s new album "Pintura" is released internationally, but the album is allready now available from the HUBRO HQ in both CD and 180g LP editions. The filmmaker Tor Kristian Liseth met the trio while recording the album in Grieghallen Studios and made a great miniature portrait that you can watch here:

1982 recording of Pintura from Tor Kristian Liseth on Vimeo.

The next release on HUBRO will be the second album by the great trio 1982: Nils Økland, Sigbjørn Apeland and Øyvind Skarbø. The album is named "Pintura" and will be released both on cd and in a limited edition 180 g LP edition. Here´s a little preview for you:

In only two days Mats Eilertsen´s new quintet album will be officially released as a CD, a 2LP in gatefold, and as DL. The reviews both her in Norway and abroad has been great so far. We are very proud of releasing this special album and think it is Mats best album to date. A real treat. You can buy it from our shop here.

"Here is contemporary European jazz of the highest quality; understated and ccompelling, it is music that makes its point through eloquence and sensitivity."
Jazzwise 4/5 - Stuart Nicholson

"Meloditime med superkvintett"
Dagbladet, Terje Mosnes 5/6

Mats Eilertsen har rukket veldig mye i løpet av sine 36 år. «SkyDive» er hans foreløpige høydepunkt."
Side2.no, Tor Hammerø 5/6

"«Skydive» er en nytelse av sofistikert vakker musikk som samtidig har motstand og utfordringer nok i seg til at den aldri blir uinteressant. Her er hymner som «Parachute Psalm» og den eksperimentelle, lett oppjagede «The Void», ytterpunkter i en helstøpt jazzplate som det er lett å anbefale."
Bergens Tidende, Olav Gorseth 5/6

Read a fresh interview with Splashgirl done by UK music website TheMilkFactory here.

Mats Eilertsens sixth album "SkyDive" is due for release september 2nd but can allready now be order both on CD and as a 2LP in gatefold cover directly from us. Check out this review from UK magazine Jazzwise:

"This is a group where each player subordinates himself to the overall group concept; no-one has a "starring" role, despite this being a minor galaxy of young stars, but the ear is drawn to the finesse of Brunborg´s floating saxophone lines and more especially Tuomarila´s effortless poise and brilliant, sparkling invention. Here is contemporary European jazz of the highest quality; understated and ccompelling, it is music that makes its point through eloquence and sensitivity."

Check out this great review of Splashgirls new album "Pressure" from Allaboutjazz.com:

"This radiant album from Norwegian piano trio Splashgirl is unlike anything that came before it, except, in some measure, its immediate predecessor, Arbor (Hubro, 2009), whose trajectory it develops. Certainly, nothing quite like it has come out of central Europe or the US.

An approximate comparative starting point would be the work of Australian trio The Necks, with which Splashgirl shares a fondness for quietness, pretty tunes, gently mesmerizing grooves and trippy electronic manipulation. But there is none of The Necks' embrace of stasis, and considerably more throbbing red blood running through Pressure's veins, an engaging passion even at the quietest moments, which during the second half of the disc builds to sustained passages of high temperature, funked-up intensity.(...)

Deeply spiritualized and altogether irresistible. As the Arctic ice cap retreats, Nordic jazz takes another step forward."

September 2nd HUBRO will release Mats Eilertsen´s sixth album: SkyDive. His quartet has grown into a quintet since the release of the highly praised 2009 album Radio Yonder (HUBROCD2501) .

The members of the original quartet are still present:
saxophonist Tore Brunborg, who also plays together with Eilertsen in Tord Gustavsen’s current band, the exciting guitarist Thomas T. Dahl and the creative Finnish drummer Olavi Louhivuori, known from the Ilmiliekki Quartet and Tomasz Stanko’s band. The new team member is the extraordinarily sophisticated Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila. Like Louhivuori, Tuomarila plays in Tomasz Stanko’s band. Watch an improvised video for the beautiful Eilertsen written track "Parachute Psalm" below:

Parachute Psalm from Mats Eilertsen on Vimeo. 

Splashgirl´s third CD "Pressure" is due for release next week and the first reviews are allready starting to tick in. UK site Thejazzman.com gives the album 4,5 out of 5 stars and writes:"The album is characterised by its gracefullness, its music instilled with the iridescence and resilience of mother of pear. "Pressure" seems to outclass most other albums in any genre this year." Preorder the album here. The album will also be available in an LP version later this month. Watch this space.

We are proud to announce the release of a Huntsville/Splashgirl split LP containg previously unreleased and first class material from recent studio session. This is the first release in a series of limited edition LP´s from HUBRO. This particular release will be printed in 250 copies and only 200 copies will be made available for sale. The LP comes in a white discobag with a nice printed insert designed by Yokoland. The release will be available from our website and on HUBRO related concerts only. Release is scheduled for August 22. Preorder here.

Allaboutjazz.com on Huntsville´s new LP: "The landscape is changing yet again, with experimental groups like Huntsville on the vanguard of a new kind of improvised music scene where noise may be a significant part of the landscape, but is still strangely appealing—even when played loud, as is appropriately recommended." 
Read the full review here.

JAE | Part 1 (Lest I Ever Waited / Jim's Place) | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

La Blogoteques´"Take away shows" are quite legendary, and has featured artists like Thurston Moore, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens +++ In september 2010 they shot a some sessions with JÆ outside an in an apartment in Paris: "The session carried itself. I think that this was one of the rare times we have filmed so many songs, without cutting, in such a short period. It was so easy, so natural for them that we decided to leave the comfort of the apartment and confront the life of the courtyard, the curious onlookers. They sang in every corner, played with the street’s noise, before finally finding, around a fountain, their harmony as a trio."
Watch the complete session here: http://en.blogotheque.net/2011/05/09/jae-en/

The complete Hubro catalogue is now available as high-res FLAC downloads from Bugge Wesseltofts download shop Gubemusic.com
FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. It is similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality: you get a perfect copy of your CD tracks, but with files significantly smaller than .wav files or .aiff files.

JÆs critically acclaimed debut album "Balls and Kittens, draught and strangling rain" has been chosen by the Radio France channel FIP as "Selection FIP" in April together with nine other albums and will get heavy air play. JÆ will play several gigs in France in May.

Ketil Bjørnstads three popular pre-ECM solo piano albums "Preludes 1 & 2" and "Pianology" has been out of print since the nineties. We are proud to now being able to make them available again as the 2CD set "Early Piano Music". A must for Bjørnstad fans, off course. But this is also touching and lyrical instrumental music that could speak to a large audience.

24.03.2011 The Hubro shop is finally open!

Sigbjørn Apeland is one of our all time favourite musicians. We are proud to be releasing his first ever solo Harmonium album "Glossolalia". Sigbjørn himself describes it as his attempt to make a form of acoustic ambient: