FNS & Svarte Greiner - Sound Of Mu 28 March, 2010 (Concert)

As you probably know if you already know me is that I'm usually to be found at almost all concerts held in Oslo within the experimental scene, and most of the time with a recorder in my hand. I finally decided to start writing reviews of memorable concerts as there's not many of those to be found no more, and my first concert review will be of the release concert for the new album of FNS (Fredrik Ness Sevendal).

This concert was held at Sound Of Mu on March 28th to mark the release of his new self-titled album "FNS" which was released on Miasmah. This is actually a re-release of the debut album which was originally released on CDR by Clearsnare in 2005, but this time it's a remastered and pressed CD and there's even a bonus track on it for this new release. Anyways, the guy behind Miasmah is the man behind Svarte Greiner, Erik Knive Skodvin who also played.


First off were Svarte Greiner (translates Black Branches) which is, as said above, the solo project of Erik K. Skodvin. Skodvin is hard to describe as anything but a truly nice guy, but as soon as he starts playing music, everything becomes darkness. It's all in the music as well, because what you see is a usual concert with the musician sitting there playing his music and using his ears and intuition to decide where to go next in the soundscape. He started out quite easy with only his guitar fading slowly into his line-up of pedals. Within the first 5 minutes I'd become part of the music and it sounded like it was the soundtrack of a slow and dark film (without any specific references here). It evolved and evolved and I enjoyed the whole thing, although I think the last part worked best, but that also may be because I had had the time to digest the previous material presented as well. It was dark and beautiful, but the amp used seemed to have a bad response to the lower frequencies played sometimes, so I'm afraid I lost my concentration a couple of times at the beginning, but as said, after 5 minutes I was part of the music through to the end. Lovely performance!


Then it was the headliner of the night, the man the release concert were held for, FNS. I've seen and heard his music many times before, so I was prepared of a good show, but this just blew my mind. In just a few weeks I've seen tons of concerts, but this took the cake and will be one of those memorable concerts I will look back at with a smile. Also here were it a bit too much amp-distortion in the very beginning, but that was quickly fixed. From playing hands at his acoustic guitar he went to use a bow, and as soon as the bow touched the guitar it was pure magic. This means that the last 90% of the show could easily be described as one of the most pleasant concerts I've ever been to, and I how well he manages to use the loops and keep evolving slowly but steady is just amazing. If you've heard either the FNS-album or his No Foly Bow from 2007, you should know what I'm talking about when I say he has control in his music, and it also worked live. I could've listened to this guy playing for many more hours, and hopefully it's not the last time I see him do a concert. I'm not sure, but I don't think I know any guitar players who does folky sounds as good as Mr. Sevendal. A true evening of joy.

Take a listen to some extracts from each of the concerts:
Svarte Greiner
FNS