Jan Bang: Live Sampling
In this MTF Podcast, festival director Andrew Dubber interviews Jan Bang. Jan is an artist whose music is crafted from the sound created by his fellow musicians. Starting with an empty hard drive in a live context, he uses a sampler to construct an open and spacious sonic environment that is utterly beautiful and breathtaking - creating a sublime and reverential atmosphere.
Bang was born and grew up in Kristiansand, and formed part of the Tromsø electronic scene with other soon-to-be famous musicians Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Petter Molvaer. Today he’s unquestionably one of the most innovative and creative musicians in Scandinavia. From crafting successful pop records in the 1990s, Bang has moved on to focus on the concept of live remix: improvising with electronics alongside more conventional instruments and performers - sampling, looping and creating a sonic environment within which the other instruments can stretch out and explore.
Jan was at #MTF Stockholm to perform, collaborate and meet likeminded artists, academics and innovators. His live improvisation with Swedish jazz singer Lina Nyberg, 808 State’s Graham Massey and guitarist David Stackenäs was an absolute highlight of the festival.
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
musicians, music, important, ecm, tech fest, work, composer, remix, electronic music, record, jan, festival, people, sampling, fellow musicians, live, performing, invite, fill, sampler
SPEAKERS
Andrew Dubber, Jan Bang
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Dubber. I’m director of Music Tech Fest, and this is the MTF podcast. Today’s episode is a really special one for me, at MTF, Stockholm back in September, I had the chance to sit down and talk with literally my favourite musician on the planet. There’s something incredibly special about what Jan Bang does, that completely stands him apart. And it just really speaks to me. It uses technology in an incredibly organic way. It’s improvisational, collaborative, and it provides a context within which his fellow musicians can absolutely shine. Jan runs the unique Punkt festival in Kristiansand, Norway, he’s worked with some legendary artists, and he also happens to be a genuinely lovely human being. And you’ll find that out when you listen to this interview, it was an absolute honour to have him at Music Tech Fest, performing, experimenting, and contributing, really pleased to introduce the remarkable Jan Bang. You play other musicians - that’s what you do.
Jan Bang
I’m a thief. I um… in the mid 90s. I found by coincidence, a way of putting my studio gear on stage. Being a producer in the in the mid 90s, using samplers in order to you know, to create songs and do remixes and productions and so forth. I was invited by a friend of mine, I just had done a remix of big of a suit off the Norwegian jazz player. And he was interested in in getting in touch with people from the electronic music. So he asked me Jan, what could you do? I was thinking, well, I’ll have this sampler that somebody gave me, why don’t I instead of something record so I could sample your musicians on stage. And that was in 96. And we did one concert and I I realised in the soundcheck that this is just a new route. This is a new possibility for for myself to discover new things. It’s like fresh sounds everyday like fresh from the baker. And as a composer and as a as a musician. That’s quite a present. So then I, you know, by meeting him, then he introduced me to other more free form players. And from there, I I never really returned to the studio that I was working with, or working in as a producer. I just left the studio, my big American case and everything with it.
Andrew Dubber
And you describe yourself as a live sampler. I
Jan Bang
guess that was the the term that that we decided to call it bigger than myself, what should we call it, let’s call it live sampling. And it’s sort of taken a life on its own and, and it’s just a technique. So it could like with punctum that we’re probably going to talk about later, but things like that could easily become just like gimmicks, so you have to fill it with content. Because it’s an empty source. So depending on who you play with and shit in shit out. Of course, myself also into that equation
Andrew Dubber
where you work with remarkable musicians. I mean, like, it’s not just that you play with good musicians, you play with remarkable musicians. But what you do kind of transforms what they do and actually provides a context for them. You’re like, I imagine what you do as being like, if you think of a painting, there’s the figure and the ground and you’re the ground and you provide the colour and a space for them to be what they are. But without that, that wouldn’t, wouldn’t have the same thing but I mean, name drop. I mean, you’ve worked with Brian, you know, you’ve worked with David Sylvian, you’ve worked with you know, Sidsel Endresen, and, you know, sort of remarkable musicians. But, you what, you do kind of contextualise them as that as that kind of how you think of it because that’s how I tell Yeah.
Jan Bang
My only concern are is the the the result I’m interested in in processes more and more processes than commercial financial success. So I’m and I want to challenge myself to work with people that could challenge me and and how I work, but mostly it’s to make other people shine. That’s really my work, you know, in order to to, to to give them enough resistance as a producer either on record or in a live situation to to make something that I kind of is a vague idea of where I’m going. That’s a kind of a vague answer, isn’t it?
Andrew Dubber
Well, okay, so let’s get a little bit more specific, then how would you describe your music to somebody who hasn’t heard it?
Jan Bang
You mentioned some of that has to do with the perspective. So, so that could either be with, you know, we’ve been working closely with Arve Henriksen, that’s probably the closest ECM musician and Rune Grammofon. And that type of labels, and work closely with him in order for, for, for him to shine, it’s important for me to, to not necessarily do collaborations where my name is on the front cover, but to work as a producer and as a composer. And I see that, that that’s with that, that just to follow my own instincts that could actually keep me working for a longer period of time, as opposed to, you know, doing being folks who focus on doing a solo career. And I also enjoy that collaboration thing. I think that music, it’s a it’s a collaborative effort. And it’s a social thing. And especially when it comes to electronic music, which can be like painting, you know, like a painter that works in solitude works alone. I do enjoy that social aspect of it.
Andrew Dubber
To be clear, you do have solo records? I do. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. Because if you take the other musicians out of the equation, and there is just your name on the front of the record sleeve, what’s the difference in approach for you?
Jan Bang
What is much, much of the same, but I noticed that my working methods has changed over the years. So I used to spend maybe three years working on an album. And now I have tried to take that down and to maybe use like two years, one year, six months, three months, two months, one month, two days, with the same artists, so that’s. So it’s possible, is it possible to use all your knowledge and your creativity into focus into a short period of two days? Yes, it is. That’s what I found out. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will, it would be a better result. If you work on a piece for you know, that amount, amount of time,
Andrew Dubber
God helps that you’re an improvising musician, as well as a composer necessarily I guess, if you’ve got two days, and you’re a composer and not an improvising musician, that’s, that would be quite a different thing.
Jan Bang
I guess. So. Yeah.
Andrew Dubber
Talk about your work with Arve Henriksen for instance, and and when I was thinking about this, who’s my favourite musician in the world, there was a little bit of a battle of Arve Henriksen was my favourite trumpet player in the world. And the one thing that You two seem to share. And again, this is my subjective interpretation of what I hear when I listen to your records, is that there is a real focus on breath and breathing in how you, even when I see you on stage, how you move is about breath. And it’s about that rhythm. And I don’t know if that’s how you think of it, but that’s how I experienced it. So yes, I
Jan Bang
agree. I just read a blog by a friend of mine, JA Deane, Dino, who I used to work with when I worked with John Hassall. And he’s talking about that electronic music or electronic instruments doesn’t does not breathe. So how could you as an electronic musician, work on that breathing? And he says, Well, you could, for instance, turn off the quantize quantize function, you know, do you have to set a tempo in order for it to, to, to to in order to make this this track, I’ve also learned quite a lot by working closely with Manfred Eicher of ECM and the way that he is actually bringing a lot to the table. And a lot of air, you know, a lot of openness, and not necessarily to, to fill every space with information because we have so much of that. So and through this work with solving maybe to leave some space for the listener, so that it’s possible for you or me as a listener to to have some of myself in that. You know, you were mentioning also the importance of, of having some kind of art or music that makes you look inwards as opposed to only outwards This has been important for me since I was 14, you know, although I do like good r&b.
Andrew Dubber
The focus on the breath and other contexts takes you very quickly towards meditation. And quite often your music is described as meditative music, although there are surprises in it quite regularly as well, is there a kind of a spirituality behind that?
Jan Bang
Not at all, and at least not any sort of religious thing, but we’re all spiritual beings, human beings, just by floating in space. But for me, it’s, it’s important. I mean, I have a dual relationship with ambient music. Because it can be, it can be become this just dull thing that you just fill every gap. And and then there is no perspective. So it’s, for me, it’s important to to always rethink what is, is this element still value? You know, like, you know, if you follow the distorted guitar, at what point? Did it stop being a provocative thing that represented danger? And what represents that today? Is that a feedback, you know, high frequency feedback? Where you think, will this hurt me? Is this damage? Will this damage my ears? interested in those kind of phenomena?
Andrew Dubber
And the symbolism of what these sounds represent? Is that is that something that you kind of go in as a composer, you say, I want to communicate these things? Or is it just these noises or how I feel right now?
Jan Bang
Maybe it’s just, like, if you first dive into those type of things, it’s just generates kind of itself. But also, I think that it’s important, and I do value that the conversations I have with fellow musicians. So when we are travelling together, performing in different places, or doing recordings, and we always have these conversations about, you know, what is interesting is or, you know, what are the possibilities? And what about doing something like that? Yeah. So it’s, it’s important, and that’s also the social benefits I think, of, of music, that can be a social activity. I do believe in that.
Andrew Dubber
Let’s talk about Punkt for a minute. You have a look about you of a man who’s finished his festival recently, rather than one who’s in the middle of right now? How do you feel? Yeah, absolutely. But Punkt does as a fascinating festival, and I’ve always wanted to go to and a couple years ago, I got the chance to do that. And it was pretty much exactly what I thought it was going to be, which was mind blowing. And it’s, it’s unique in the sense that you have a performance and then you have a remix of that performance. And then you have another performance and then a remix of it. Yeah, I know, where did that idea come from as a ridiculous question, because it’s obvious where that idea came from. But, but what convinced you that that was a format for a festival?
Jan Bang
Well, in the first year, we did it, there was 20 people on the first row in a big theatre, you know, 400 capacity. So it was kind of embarrassing for at least for the guy who put his money into it. But, but we thought that we had a good idea. And it could easily have just been a kind of a gimmick kind of thing, you know, we have the new tools. Hahaha. So, but, but if you have a good idea, and you believe in that idea, just stick to it. And then then it might, you know, gain interest in other people. So the basic idea for Punkt is, it’s just like a bigger version of that live sampling technique that I just explained. Where instead of sampling, other musicians on stage, we sample entire concerts. So we have a band playing on orchestra playing or solo performance. And then somewhere behind there are people sampling out bits and pieces. Working closely with with both acoustic and electric players. And then immediately after the performance, they go and do their performance. This is it’s a live remix of, of that. So kind of a deconstruction of what just happened. So that’s a starting point. You know, you’d have somebody else’s music as a starting point for your own work. And and the whole idea is too, wants to push push us into new ways of creating music. It’s always that that element of, of creating new music,
Andrew Dubber
because in the context of most conversations about music sampling, of course it leads you directly to copyrights. And what you found a way to actually engage these as musical instruments in the process of CO creation rather than the process of remix remash remodel resample and, like make it it’s not making new music out of old music, it’s making new music with other musicians right using their own sounds. But in the slightly kind of offset world of Punkt, you are making a performance out of somebody else’s performance, which is a really interesting kind of middle ground. I think
Jan Bang
it is and, and it comes down to, I mean, things of yours, you have been discussing at Music Tech Fest. I think it comes down to trust. So that we do all our booking not in the Yellow Pages, but we we meet people we see if we have something in common, and then we invite and since it’s a music, musician driven festival, then there is a trust involved. And it’s and that’s, that’s the the crucial thing for it. So that if we invite someone like, like Ruchi Sakamoto to do a concert, he would know that he’s in, in fairly good hands. But it’s treated with respect and, and it moves the music forward.
Andrew Dubber
But that like mindedness isn’t that you will sound the same or that there is a genre even kind of, I mean, I heard a wide diversity of bands The other day I was there. What are the musical parameters?
Jan Bang
We have tried different things we’ve tried. Having people prepare for the remix Guy Sigsworth did a remix of Susana student furkan, Norwegian artists, which were very well prepared. And to me, that’s one way of doing it. But but but it’s not not something I would have done myself. I believe in the blank harddisk. So you only fill it with whatever is happening in the room, it makes your, you know, the blood in your body run a little bit faster. So so. And also to the I think that the mixture of the electronics acoustics and an electrical instruments that’s the beauty and the beast, and of course, the electronic being the beauty in this context.
Andrew Dubber
So just just for clarity, when you walk onto a stage with a band about to perform, you have no sounds that’s right in your sampler. What you do is the first note you hear you take and you interpret, yeah. and
Jan Bang
above, but we know this when we create music in the studio. This is how we compose isn’t it, that’s how we make records that we we have one sound and then we have another one and then we see the combinations or unusual combinations. So based on how you do your programming, who is playing on the mainstage and who is actually doing the remix, you can create this very exciting meetings, you know, between contemporary, like modern competition and, and very, very sort of minimal techno or, or whatever. improvisers so
Andrew Dubber
so that you know, and I was kind of reluctant to tell you this, but I’m kind of committed to it now. Last time I actually saw you in person was at pumped a couple years ago. And you had the release of a new album on ECM, a two CD album, and I took it highlights and I put the first CD into the car CD player and it’s still there. And I had never heard the signals not stuck I just every now and then I will you know whether it’s the radio on or I’ve got, you know, my phone plugged in or whatever, but I’ll switch it to CD and that’s the CD that I play and it’s the only CD that has stayed there for the last two years. I’ve never heard the second CD of it but my leading to me to my question is because I need to listen to the second city because I know there’s more next what’s next
Jan Bang
mean on that specific CD or I know
Andrew Dubber
where I’ll find that out for myself. what’s what’s the next thing coming out with your name on the front of it?
Jan Bang
Well, I was funny that Stephen, at least one Plank was here. I’ve been to Ingo Krauss, who was an engineer working very closely with Conny Plank and recorded in his studio, and it was meant to be as an improv album, but out of the material some lines developed. So it’s turned into this Vocal Album. So it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s pretty interesting just to follow, you know the, to follow the energy wherever that is. And for me, trying out that kind of vocal thing is interesting. We’re going to Tokyo in two weeks with bunked doing the Ryuichi Sakamoto a choral piece, and doing a rework of that we did Takemitsu year, the year before and do album on ECM where they’ve been offset guitarist. And yet some small things here and here. And that largely I’m doing some stuff with Laci the sitar player. So
Andrew Dubber
a little bit he works, and you’re also a professor. That’s right.
Jan Bang
Yeah, I teach at the University of Agder in Kristiansand where I live with my family. And I, when they started the electronic music studies there, they invited me to, to teach, and I do love teaching, but it takes up so much amount of time. But I think it’s important to pass on information. So if if you know, something, then pass it on to other generations. So meaning as punkt this year, we had 18 students performing. And that’s not out of generosity, it’s because they are really, really good.
Andrew Dubber
So it’s, it’s important to do, we found that here at kth, too, we’ve been hosted by this university institution and we cherry pick two amazing innovators and we got a whole lot from here just because the calibre is so phenomenal. But But you said it’s really important to pass on information is really important to pass on knowledge. What for the Music Tech Fest crowd you have as your own kind of, this is the knowledge that I have to share. What would you close with?
Jan Bang
I think that the trust thing, the generosity to, to follow the instinct and to, to share your experiences, to do so in good spirits is probably what I would say.
Andrew Dubber
Jan Bang, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Wonderful. Thanks so much for listening to the MTF podcast. If you’re enjoying. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And in particular, if you could tell a couple of people about it. We’d really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your week and talk very soon. Cheers.
