BEAM SPLITTER + LØNNING & REINERTSEN - BEAUTIES
(Neither/Nor Records, 2023)
Two idiosyncratic duos form one ecstatic organism where four closely miked acoustic sound sources merge with external analog and digital electronics. This is the physical starting point for a vast multidimensional sound world. The quartet made their debut with a commissioned work for the "Asphalt festival" in Düsseldorf in 2018, and consists of four performers who continuously push the boundaries of their respective instruments. "Beauties" was recorded over two days at "Flerbruket" in rural Hemnes, Norway, and is the quartet's first collaborative release. For mixing clarity, the four musicians were physically scattered around the old wooden house, linked by microphones and headsets. The two pieces that make up the album were recorded in real time without additional editing or processing, capturing the group living and breathing as one.
neithernorrecords.bandcamp.com/album/beauties
"The result is two almost 20-minute-long pieces of snapping, rattling, buzzing, blowing, humming and sawing art at its finest." 5/6 - Westzeit
"Raw abstraction, whose urgency goes less through the head and more through the gut." - WDR 3
"Both pieces highlight the great sensitivity of the four musicians to every sound, raw, naked, shaped spontaneously or thoughtfully processed, in deep listening interaction and within the distinct space of Flerbruket. These pieces sound evocative and otherworldly, like dream-like textures that blur the distinction between the acoustic and electronic sounds, rich with detail and sonic imagination and surprisingly touching." - Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts
"The sounds they produce are on the brink of non-existence, and while highly improvised music, there is some excellent interaction going on here. Turn up the music even more, and a world of sounds opens up." - FdW, Vital Weekly
BEAM SPLITTER - SPLIT JAW (Tripticks tapes, 2023)
BEAM SPLITTER'S second duo release "SPLIT JAW" has found its home on Nat Baldwin's Tripticks Tapes. This bite size format packs an entire universe of the duo's crafted sputter, breath and glitch inside its forty-five minute magnetic tape loop. The BEAMs have been touring globally since 2015, playing close to two hundred concerts, in a wide variety of rooms - from cellars to art spaces to festivals stages, bringing their own brand of closely amplified dialog which is as highly intimate as it is equal amounts raw and entirely exposed. Since their last release "Rough Tongue" on Corvo Records, the two have brought in the use of simple analogue electronics to offset their hyper extended physical play and have been pushing new territories with this augmented set up.
"SPLIT JAW" is one third introspective Berlin studio production and the rest, live from a splintering concert given at Wels Unlimited Festival in Austria, November 5, their last concert of 2022 where audience and the duo alike giving it their all center of room, split open like hollow bones head to clavicle, muscles twitching and air spewing, breaking ground and mending it with alien hums.
triptickstapes.bandcamp.com/album/split-jaw
“I’m still not entirely sure why this music’s so good, but ultimately I
know that it is.” - Kurt Gottschalk, New york city jazz record
“Broken into three intense movements, Split Jaw amplifies the trombone and adds feedback, sound files and electronics to the recipe. Shrill, keening "Breastbone" stuns; the mercurial "Down To Rock And Up To Fire" stammers and wails towards melody. "Purple Mouth" begins like a penal electrocution, confrontational scree stabs and vocal distensions intermingled and sometimes interchangeable, before yielding to aching tension and Chen's exquisite glossolalia.” - Raymond Cummings, The Wire
“Chen and Nørstebø weave abstract and orchestrate intuitive and eccentric ideas and spontaneous streams of vocalizations into intricate and poetic textures,
full of rich and insightful sonic imagination.” - Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts
BEAM SPLITTER - DEDICATED PLAY (self released, 2021)
DEDICATED PLAY is an album featuring a selection of luminary artists and friends we (BEAM SPLITTER) have worked with over the last couple of years. Despite all the negative consequences of the pandemic and global lockdown, musicians were suddenly home more, and we decided to start this project, gathering threads from international meetings. The title track was recorded in April and sent out with an invitation to treat the material in however way each artist saw fit. We have really enjoyed receiving these very different takes on our initial piece, and are happy to share the result!
With guest artists:
Ka Baird
Victoria Shen
Richard Scott
Anghel Mailat
Julien Desprez
Andrea Parkins
Nguyễn Baly & Tara Transitory
Anja Lauvdal & Christian Winther
Talibam! : Kevin Shea & Matt Mottel
Rage thormbones :
Matt Barbier & Weston Olencki
Kyle Bruckmann, Danishta Rivero & Jacob Felix Heule
henriknorstebo.bandcamp.com/album/dedicated-play-2020
BEAM SPLITTER - ROUGH TONGUE (Corvo records, 2017)
BEAM SPLITTER‘s debut album „Rough Tongue“ on Corvo Records is one part, a timbral collage of carefully extracted sound material and in another,
a longer moment taken from an intimate room below the din. All tracks are taken from three live concerts in 2016.
Utilizing the pure sounds of acoustic and closely amplified trombone and voice, the record exemplifies the joining together of these two
individual voices into a distinct dialog that delves beyond the borders of the corporeal elements of extended technique and sound.
There is an intimacy and conflict that becomes evident as the two personas intertwine, in moments joining together seamlessly and in the next,
being left with the feeling of irrevocable fracture. The two manage between these extremes with a kind of improvised grace that reveals an effort towards a common goal. It is an honest metaphor for human relationship in process that even in the most serene moments can leave one raw and entirely exposed.
corvorecords.bandcamp.com/album/rough-tongue
Get the physical release (red vinyl in a beautiful gatefold cover) either by contacting us directly, or through www.corvorecords.de
Reviews:
"For each of us, breath is a highly personal signature at the audible edge of sound; to magnify it, as Nørstebø and Chen do, is to make oneself available in a particularly bold way.
And the work on Rough Tongue is nothing if not bold.”
— Daniel Barbiero, Avant Music News (USA)
"Audrey Chen and Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø’s album is quite something. Henrik Nørstebø’s meticulously realised trombone scapes combine elegantly with Audrey Chen’s
extraordinary array of virtuosic formant manipulations. Always inventive, often deeply emotive, this is a beautiful duo."
— Chris Abrahams (The Necks)
" (...) Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø’s trombone often percolates in place, conjuring purring power lines, growling lions on the prowl, or yard tools on the fritz (don’t worry, they’re warrantied). Both fibrous and pliable, Audrey Chen’s wordless vocals wrap around Nørstebø’s mouthpiece, climb deep inside, then sprout tendrils out the horn; wobbly moans collide with clicks and chirps, gasping for air between piercing howls. Slow in motion, yet quick in phrasing, Beam Splitter swings precariously from trapeze bars, spinning wingless above the ground, taunting Mother Earth to claim gravity’s fugitives."
— Todd Gruel, A Closer listen (USA)
“Chen and Munkeby Nørstebø explores the spectrum between expressive, abstract vocals and the trombone as an instrument that channels pure bubbles of air and streams of breathes, intertwined in dense dialogues. Despite the abstract nature of Beam Splitter’s aesthetics, Chen offers highly emotional and suggestive territories with her urgent, wordless lingo while Munkeby Nørstebø embraces gently her vocal forays with raw, tactile breathes, and serene drones. Both move organically, keeping a highly intimate, conversational mode, with their own senses of pulse and narrative development.”
— Eyal Hareuveni, The Free Jazz Collective (USA)
“Süßes Nichts, herbes Alles: Rough Tongue von Beam Splitter ist eine stimmige, ja vielstimmige Platte voller magischer Momente”
— Felix, Freistil (AT)
"Chen og Nørstebø behersker et stort spekter av lyder, og spesielt i den lange «Sweet Nothings» makter de å foreta en kontinuerlig fengende utforskning av strukturer og klanger,
i en uopphørlig veksling mellom soloinnslag og lydhørt samspill."
— Jon Mikkel Broch Ålvik, Morgenbladet (NO)
“Once temas repartidos de manera tan inusual como el propio talante de su música…”
— Fernando O. Paíno, Nomelody Magazine (ES)
“Was für eine Rite de passage ins Urzeitliche. … die Posaune macht ‘rrooo’, ‘rrrrro’ und ‘ffftt’, sie stöhnt und schnaubt minotaurisch…. (Chen) breitet ihre Schwingen als besessene Schamanin,
sie haspelt, schrillt, girrt und gibt Klänge von sich, für die Menschensprache keine Worte hat.”
— Rigo Dittmann, Bad Alchemy (DE)
Όχι ένα άκουσμα για τον κάθε έναν, κάθε ώρα και στιγμή, αλλά σίγουρα μια δυνατή περίπτωση εξερεύνησης ορισμένων επικοινωνιακών ακροτάτων.
— Phontas Troussas, ΔΙΣΚΟΡΥΧΕΙΟΝ / VINYLMINE (GR)
"Det er et oversiktlig lydrike de regjerer, nærmest gjennomskinnelig. Det fins ingenting å gjemme seg bak. (...) Kvaliteten sitter i detaljene, og de er mange."
— Arild R. Andersen, Jazz in Norge (NO)
Ženský hlas je místy vyostřen do žiletky, občas je to ostří gilotiny, trombon vytváří ruchové plivance, jež se posléze utápějí v hloubce zvukového vesmíru.
Nechybí ani osvěžující vánek přirozeného lidského dechu v celé škále lyrizujících emocí, stejně tak hlasové bouře v útrobách vášní…
— Jan Hocek, His Voice Magazine (CZ)
"Ofte kan det høres ut som om mye av musikken har vært gjennom diverse elektroniske dippedutter før den har nådd høgtalerne, men nesten samtidig med at jeg tenker det, så kommer jeg på at det faktisk også kan ha vært gjort med korteste vei fra mikrofon til høgtaler. For disse to musikerne, Chen fra USA og Nørstebø fra Norge, er to teknikere av rang, som kan sine «instrumenter» til fingerspissene."
— Jan Granlie, Salt peanuts (NO)