This is a track from our new release Sounds And Sights on Rune Grammofon. The album is recorded Norway in October 2010.
 
Sounds And Sights is In The Country´s first live album and the fourth release in total. 

Personel: Morten Qvenild (piano, synthesizers), Roger Arntzen (double bass), Pål Hausken (drums), Andreas Mjøs (guitar)

Brothers In Arms (In The Country/Sounds And Sights)

This is a track from our new release Sounds And Sights on Rune Grammofon. The album is recorded in Norway in October 2010.

Sounds And Sights is In The Country´s first live album and the fourth release in total.

Personel: Morten Qvenild (piano, synthesizers), Roger Arntzen (double bass), Pål Hausken (drums, vocal), Andreas Mjøs (guitar)


Slow Down (In The Country/Sounds And Sights)

This is a track from our new release Sounds And Sights on Rune Grammofon. The album is recorded in Norway in October 2010.

Sounds And Sights is In The Country´s first live album and the fourth release in total. 

Personel: Morten Qvenild (piano, synthesizers), Roger Arntzen (double bass), Pål Hausken (drums), Andreas Mjøs (guitar)

Whiteout (In The Country/Sounds And Sights)

Track from album Trail Of Souls with In the Country, Solveig Slettahjell and Knut Reiersrud released on ACT Music in October 2015

Soul Of A Man (2015)

Track from the album Trail Of Souls with In the Country, Solveig Slettahjell and Knut Reiersrud on ACT Music in October 2015

Mercy Street (2015)

Borrowed Time (2015)

The members of In the Country have carved out their own personal ledge in the piano trio mountain. With pianist and composer Morten Qvenild (Susanna & the Magical Orchestra, Jaga Jazzist, sPacemoNkey) as frontman, they have tread paths that no other piano trio before them has ventured to walk. After a series of critically acclaimed releases on Rune Grammofon and the German label ACT, they are now releasing their first whole album together with a vocalist, featuring Norwegian lyrics by poet and lumberjack Hans Børli. On "Skogenes Sang" ("The Song of the Forests") they are joined by the British pedal steel legend BJ Cole and vocalist Frida Ånnevik, one of the most talented and highly praised of the new generation of young singer-songwriters. Ånnevik has already released two critically acclaimed solo records, and has won a Spellemannspris (Norwegian Grammy) as well as other prestigious prizes.Hans Børli (1918-1989), from Eidskog, worked as a lumberjack his entire life, while at the same time he was a prolific writer. For this reason he was called "the poet of the forest". He is known primarily as a poet, but he also wrote novels, short stories and plays. Børli"s point of departure was the forest and forest life, while his poetry also bears witness to his interest in politics and his increasing focus on existential problems such as fear, faith and death. Børli received a number of literary awards, including the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature in 1970 and the Dobloug Prize in 1972. He was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1972. His poems have previously been set to music by Erik Lukashagen and Sinikka Langeland, among others.Morten Qvenild has felt a strong connection to Hans Børli"s poems for a long time, and has composed the music for all the poems on "Skogenes Sang". When BBC journalist Fiona Talkington invited the trio to participate in the concert series "Conexions" at the National Jazz Scene in 2012, it was natural to include these pieces. Talkington"s objective in this concert series was to stimulate collaboration between Norwegian and British musicians. Pedal steel guitarist BJ Cole was teamed up with In the Country, and the band itself invited Frida Ånnevik to join forces with them. "She was actually an obvious choice for us when it came to performing these down-to-earth poems," according to the band. The choice proved to be an excellent one. "Playing with Frida has been a very natural process, and it feels as though we"ve been working together for years when we see how similar our views of the music and lyrics are."

As an artist, Ånnevik has received particular attention for her lyrics. As she hails from Hedmark, she also has a certain amount of familiarity with Børli"s poetry. "Børli is part of the four-leaf clover of exceptional Hedmark poets: Alf Prøysen, Rolf Jacobsen, Kjell Aukrust and Hans Børli." Although In the Country is mainly an instrumental trio, vocals and lyrics have also played a role in its universe. "We have always been a vocal band," says bass player Roger Arntzen, "and we have had a go at everything from growling to bel canto on previous albums." Qvenild and drummer Pål Hausken have sung on several of the group"s albums, and Swedish cult singer-songwriter Stefan Sundström also guested on the album "Losing Stones, Collecting Bones". In the past few years the band has held a number of concerts together with author and lyricist Frode Grytten. All three band members have, independently of the trio, played with vocalists known for their powerful lyrics: Morten Qvenild with Susanna Wallumrød and Solveig Slettahjell, Roger Arntzen with Heidi Skjerve and Julie Dahle Aagård, and drummer Pål Hausken with Hilde Marie Kjersem and Ida Jenshus, among others.

Skogens Sang (2014)

Perspektiv (2014)

Det Finnes (2014)

Live recording "Norwegian Woods" from the concert series Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic in 2014.

Jazz At Berlin Philharmonic II: Norwegian Woods [Live]

Nobody's Fault but Mine [Live] (2014)

Ingen Vinner Frem Til Den Evige RO [Live] (2014)

This is a track from our latest release "Sounds And Sights" on Rune Grammofon. The album is recorded in Norway in October 2010.

"Sounds And Sights" is In The Country´s first live album and the fourth release in total.

Personel: Morten Qvenild (piano, synthesizers), Roger Arntzen (double bass), Pål Hausken (drums), Andreas Mjøs (guitar)


Kung Home (In The Country/Sounds And Sights)

Track from our latest album "Sunset Sunsrise", released on ACT on February 22nd, 2013.

Recorded in the legendary Sunset Sound studio i Los Angeles, Hollywood in May 26th & 27th, 2012. 

Stanley Park (In The Country/Sunset Sunrise)

Track from our latest album "Sunset Sunsrise", released on ACT on February 22nd, 2013.

Recorded in the legendary Sunset Sound studio i Los Angeles, Hollywood in May 26th & 27th, 2012.

Derrick (In The Country/Sunset Sunrise)

SOLVEIG SLETTAHJELL, vocal
KNUT REIERSRUD, guitar
MORTEN QVENILD, piano
ROGER ARNTZEN, bass
PÅL HAUSKEN, drums

"Connecting the unexpected" is the motto of Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic, a concert series curated and produced by ACT label boss Siggi Loch, which began in December 2012. The 'Norwegian Woods' edition of the series in March 2014 experienced an amazing evening. Loch had assembled the A-team of Norwegian jazz, and created the unexpected by combining them with a guest artist from a different musical realm:

Solveig Slettahjell was one such artist welcomed back into the fold. The ACT label released her early albums, establishing her international reputation as one of Europe's leading jazz vocalists. Here she was partnered up with In the Country, the piano trio involving her close friend Morton Qvenild, pianist, sonic explorer and also a member of Solveig Slettahjell's Slow Motion ensembles. The real surprise that evening, however, came from adding the blues guitarist Knut Reiersrud. He had been on Siggi Loch's radar for quite some time, and on this occasion was having his first ever meeting with Slettahjell and her crew. It turned out to be an ideal combination. The evening was a celebration of everything that had made the Nordic sound so attractive and successful for many decades. On the one hand there was the elegiac, bluesy side, inspired by the spirit of indigenous folk music; on the other the electronic, the rhythmically daring and the experimental.

Then followed a huge amount of careful preparation and several rehearsals in Morten Qvenild's private studio, after which all the musicians ended up in the celebrated Rainbow Studio in Oslo to give the original idea a definitive shape. All eleven tracks, with the exception of the final number, a song composed by Reiersrud, are blues and gospel classics in the broadest sense. There are three from stars of pop and soul music - Bill Withers "Grandma's Hand", Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street" and Leonard Cohen's "Come Healing" - but beyond those the others are the kind of tunes only familiar to initiates such as Reiersrud. "We did all rummage through our record collections and chose a few old work songs and spirituals together," says Slettahjell, "but Knut is the really knowledgeable one among us."

The procession of songs on "Trail of Souls" takes in, for example, the emotional traditional song "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child," and that staple of gospel church services, "His Eye Is On The Sparrow," and the memorable "Don't Feel Noways Tired" by the King of Gospel, the Reverend James Cleveland. From older pieces by Blind Willie Johnson, James Anderson and Richard M. Jones – with the evergreen song "Trouble in Mind" - the selection comes up to date with the song "Is My Living In Vain?" by Elbernita 'Twinkie' Clark, a gospel star and two-time Grammy winner.


BOOKING:

Hihat (Norway)
www.hihat.no

Jan Sollesnes
Tel: +47 56 90 19 19
Mail: jan.sollesnes[at]hihat.no

Bjørn Bunes
e-post: bjorn[at]hihat.no


GENERAL REQUESTS:
Roger Arntzen
Cell: +47 906 404 88
Mail: roger[at]rogerarntzen.com
www.inthecountry.no/remembrance
www.inthecountry.no

In the Country, Slettahjell & Reiersrud

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