Atomic/School Days
So this is one of the most kick ass bands that was ever 2 bands and then combined (voltron style) to 1 band.
It started as a Ken Vandermark group called School Days. School Days' first album "Crossing Division" is amazing. The quartet of Vandermark (reeds), Jeb Bishop (trombone), Paal Nilsson-Love (drums), and Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten(bass) is pretty amazing. This album really solidified my love of Vandermark's music, mostly because I have a very particular taste in films that Vandermark seems to share, and seeing that he wrote a song dedicated to Takeshi Kitano just made it more obvious. So then the group became a quintet by adding Kjell Nordeson on vibes with the album "In Our Time". Now the group was sporting the same instrumentation as the Dave Holland Quintet, but with much more variation, and creativity in the writing.
Enter Atomic
They were an amazing Scandanavian Quintet made up of:
Paal Nilsson-Love (drums)
Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten (bass)
Magnus Broo (trumpet)
Fredrik Ljungkvist (sax)
Havard Wiik (piano)
They released a couple albums, one of which had a sweet cover of "Pyramid Song" by Radiohead. They even toured the US, where they unleashed a fury of crazy ass jazz intensity. Seeing them at the Ottobar in Baltimore was a revelation. It was like their instruments couldn't even contain the sheer density of their feral battle-like songs.
So...checking the great Vandermark discography at tisue.net, I found out that the two bands of School Days, and Atomic were joining forces...and would only perform as one entity. They even released an album, the amazing "Nuclear Assembly Hall" in which they display a chameleon-like blend of styles and timbres.
And now the three-headed monster that is Atomic/School Days will convene in Chicago in April for a couple of shows that should not be missed...and we can only hope they will be documented somehow!
More info on the dates and locations of these performances can be found at:
www.kenvandermark.com
It started as a Ken Vandermark group called School Days. School Days' first album "Crossing Division" is amazing. The quartet of Vandermark (reeds), Jeb Bishop (trombone), Paal Nilsson-Love (drums), and Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten(bass) is pretty amazing. This album really solidified my love of Vandermark's music, mostly because I have a very particular taste in films that Vandermark seems to share, and seeing that he wrote a song dedicated to Takeshi Kitano just made it more obvious. So then the group became a quintet by adding Kjell Nordeson on vibes with the album "In Our Time". Now the group was sporting the same instrumentation as the Dave Holland Quintet, but with much more variation, and creativity in the writing.
Enter Atomic
They were an amazing Scandanavian Quintet made up of:
Paal Nilsson-Love (drums)
Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten (bass)
Magnus Broo (trumpet)
Fredrik Ljungkvist (sax)
Havard Wiik (piano)
They released a couple albums, one of which had a sweet cover of "Pyramid Song" by Radiohead. They even toured the US, where they unleashed a fury of crazy ass jazz intensity. Seeing them at the Ottobar in Baltimore was a revelation. It was like their instruments couldn't even contain the sheer density of their feral battle-like songs.
So...checking the great Vandermark discography at tisue.net, I found out that the two bands of School Days, and Atomic were joining forces...and would only perform as one entity. They even released an album, the amazing "Nuclear Assembly Hall" in which they display a chameleon-like blend of styles and timbres.
And now the three-headed monster that is Atomic/School Days will convene in Chicago in April for a couple of shows that should not be missed...and we can only hope they will be documented somehow!
More info on the dates and locations of these performances can be found at:
www.kenvandermark.com
posted by Scott Burton at 6:43 PM
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