Hamid Drake and new Polish collaborations lifts PUNKT to new heights

Translating as ‘point’ in Norwegian, PUNKT, celebrating it 19th edition this year, offered a sumptuous audio-visual programme that thrived on in-the-moment creativity, holding up a sonic mirror to our unsettling and frequently troubled times. While PUNKT remains a gem among Norway’s many excellent jazz festivals, this fully post-pandemic edition saw the core cast of Scandi-jazztronica stars collaborate with musicians from Poland (a new two year initiative), France, America and even a Syrian-Norwegian oud player, Khaled Habeeb. Longtime PUNKT performer/curator David Toop had also assembled a heavyweight seminar programme alongside the music – with the likes of installation and video artists such as British multi-media artist Haroon Mirza and Lebanese sound artist Nour Sokhon offering yet more mind-expanding sounds and visions to reflect on. Sokhon stepped up to the live remix challenge too and performed one of the most compelling sets of the weekend.  

Nour Sokhon - Photo by Petter Sandell

Once more back in its original home of the Teatret venue, (returning there for the first time in 2022) the cosy red velvet seating of the auditorium contrasted with the standing-only basement, matching the often beatific sounds of the main programme, with the fractiously funky live remixes below.

In the past PUNKT has been happy to rock out and headbang its way into a state of sonic nirvana, with raucous sets from the likes of Stian Westerhus, Elephant9 and Three Trapped Tigers – it’s also featured high-profile guest artists such as Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Jon Hassell and David Sylvian. Yet this year a far more meditative spell was cast over many of the collaborations, several of them drummer-less, emphasising a heady dream-like atmosphere.

Joanna Duda - Photo by Petter Sandell

An opening night duo from adventurous Polish pianist Joanna Duda and revered Hardanger fiddle player Erlend Apneseth was among those to feature the new partnership between PUNKT and forward looking Polish musicians. Duda fits this bill perfectly with her poised blend of classically trained touch at the piano and electronic flashes from both MacBook and OP-1 synth. Apneseth switched between keening bowed drones to an Oud/banjo-like approach, playing the fiddle in his lap, with rolling pull-offs, slides and tricky pizzicato runs. The remix of this set was an early highlight too, with students from Kristiansand University – who’ve been tutored by electronica maestros and PUNKT founders Jan Bang and Eric Honoré – getting a chance to heavily deconstruct the aforementioned duo set, stretching fiddle drones to breaking point and adding bristling backbeats in a stormy rumbling response.

A further Norwegian/Polish collaboration found saxophonist Maciej Obara, pianist/electronics Anja Lauvdal, bassist Ole Morten Vågan and drummer Veslemøy Narvesen – another PUNKT premiere – melting subtle, sometimes dominant electronics, and sweetly grooving piano work from Lauvdal, who guided the group between contemporary jazz and freer, fractured passages. Obara impressed with his gossamer sax lines, that added some sour, outside harmonies to the mix, while Vågan plucked and pulled some rubbery sounds from his compliant upright bass.

Skúli Sverrisson - Photo by Petter Sandell

With such a strong line-up things unexpectedly peaked early on Friday evening with a breath-taking set from the Iceland trio of celebrated bassist Skúli Sverrisson, his partner and astonishing singer Ólöf Arnalds and pianist Davíð Þór Jónsson (a renowned film composer). With Sverrisson’s gently thrumming six-string bass guitar drenched in a vast Valhalla-sized reverb, Arnalds’ piercingly poignant operatic-folk-like vocals and melancholic piano explorations from Þór Jónsson, this drummerless group created an immersive ice-cave ambience – with the utterly mesmerising light show created by the festivals resident lighting genius Tord Knudsen. It left many in the audience speechless at such profoundly beautiful sights and sounds. The essence of which was carefully remixed by Eivind Aarset,  Morten Qvenild and John Derek Bishop.

Arve Henriksen - Photo by Petter Sandell

Unenviable as this may have been to follow, the first time collaboration between leading Polish string ensemble, the  Lutosławski Quartet, with core PUNKT performers – trumpet titan Arve Henriksen and electronics gurus Jan Bang and Erik Honoré – provided another triumph. The strings began with some watery, intricate lines, often passing a note between them, plucking and bowing to create ripples of melody, these in turn sampled by the electronicists, who wove together a tapestry of processed strings, while Henriksen set up his own call and response between keening trumpet, cornet, flute and his astonishing voice – that can switch between angelic cries, Mongolian-throat rumbles to pure, primal screams.

Veteran US drum don Hamid Drake was to make his presence felt – even more so after nearly an entire evening sans percussion – as he stepped up to remix the aforementioned set with prodigiously talented undergraduate electronica artist Even Sigurdsen Røstad, surely Bang’s protégé. Drake too was something of a newbie to the live remix format, but deployed all his finely-tuned musical instincts to respond with astounding shimmering cymbal slashes, lightning speed rolls and thundering floor toms to whip up a perfect electro-acoustic storm. Røstad matched Drake’s speed and intuition for a remarkable intergenerational meeting of minds, the more the samples piled in, the more inspired Drake became. So heady were the heights this duo scaled, one recalled the blood, sweat and tears of the much missed US drummer Steve Reid and his percussive face-offs with the mutated keys of Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet). One can only hope they see sense and release this as an album too. Drake’s impassioned post-gig speech direct to the audience about how important festival’s such as PUNKT are for the creative lifeblood, hinted at just how inspired he was feeling too.

Even Sigurdsen Røstad - Photo by Petter Sandell

Topping this looked impossible and so it proved, with a strong line-up on the final night not quite hitting these kinds of highs – although Drake did return for the richly textured live launch of Aarset and Bang’s new album, Last Two Inches of Sky, featuring bassist Audun Erlien, US singer/harpist Sophye Soliveau and Henriksen (once more magnificent) on a set that dipped into a Nordic take on dub, with Soliveau’s soulful blues-inflected vocals providing a suitable climax. It certainly had its moments, but the evening’s earlier set by Berlin’s TAU 5 didn’t quite achieve lift off, and its remix didn’t get out of second gear with a clubby 4/4 beat dominating – and the last remix by acclaimed noise musician Lasse Marhaug, suffered from technical problems that ultimately proved a bit of buzz killer.

However, this is the essence and importance of PUNKT: to provide a safe space for musicians to take risks and strive for uncharted points on the creative map. When it works it’s magic, if not, it’s the getting there that counts.