Thurston in The Thing box set
 

Coming this spring:
The Thing: "Now and forever" Box Set including a live recording with Thurston!

Thnx Moshe !

I'm going to see The Thing in february. and Sonore in march.

Thanks Mohe! Can't wait to hear that!

You lucky man. The Thing should be amazing live.

The Thing live @ Barcelona 2006
 

The Thing... The Thing is amazing live, Moshe.
Happy new year!




(poster of the show in Barcelona, march 2006)

THE THING BOX SET

We are pleased to announce that we will release a The Thing box set titled "Now And Forever". The box will include their two first albums, "The Thing" and "She Says" (with Joe McPhee), that were both released on Universal. The albums have been deleted for years, and we are happy to finally get these lost classics back in print. Also there will be a new CD with a new impro session. And; there will be a DVD with The Thing live at the Oya Festival with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on guitar. Note that the box will only be pressed in a edition of 2000 copies. The box is being made now and we`ll come back with a release date as soon as we know. Stay tuned!

http://www.smalltownsupersound.com/v...jazzz/news.php

http://www.ballade.no:80/mic.nsf/doc...11452733410849




Smalltown keeping the pace: label nights and The Thing
31/01/2008
Special label nights at two important festivals, and an exciting new box release, prove that Smalltown Supersound/ Superjazz is at the forefront of independent music as ever before.
Few labels embody the spirit of independent music in a way comparable to Smalltown Supersound: zeitgeisty (in the positive sense) unrestricted, and, most of all, artistically truthful music is brought forth at a frequency that is baffling. Especially if one has a look at the number of releases last year and not least their international reception.

But it is not simply in terms of releases that Smalltown show their zeal; the new fashion of “label nights” is something at which Smalltown excel, and small wonder if one takes a look at the label’s catalogue of artists: the names under the Smalltown umbrella are consistently subject to international buzz and connoisseur admiration. For they are artists in the true sense of the word, not commodities pushed by an industry.

The interesting thing about the label nights is the indication they give that people are now increasingly becoming fans of labels rather than single acts. This just goes to show the confidence that is put in the tastes of the people behind labels such as Smalltown; it’s like they’ve become favourite DJ’s; someone you can trust to choose the music you like for you.

Smalltown will be staging two important label nights shortly: Most important is the one taking place at the mammoth SXSW festival in Austin in March. The showcase will feature Bjørn Torske, Sunburned the Hand of the Man, Lindstrøm, Arp, Diskjokke and Kim Hiorthøy. – All names that belong to the international vanguard of electronic and dance music and all of which released acclaimed records last year.

But before that, two special Smalltown parties will be hosted during the by:Larm festival in Norway, which this year will be hosted by Oslo. (- A belated acknowledgement that in a little country like Norway one simply cannot bypass the capital and its dominance in also the field of music.) The names are Lindstrøm, Bjørn Torske and Sunkissed DJ G-Ha on the first night (Feb. 22nd), and 120 days and Diskjokke the following.

As of releases the most interesting right now from Smalltown (the Smalltown Superjazz division) is the release of a box-set with the garage jazz juggernaut The Thing. The joint Norwegian/Swedish improv trio features one of Europe’s leading sax players Mats Gustavsson and arguably one of the best rhythm sections around; drummer Paal Nilssen Love and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. The Thing blends the spontaneity and imagination of classic free jazz with the emotional immediacy of underground garage rock. With acoustic traditional jazz instrumentation, the three young Scandinavians can match the power of the fiercest rock band. The Thing's repertoire consists of 60's era new-jazz (Don Cherry, Ayler, James Blood Ulmer, David Murray) and reinterpretations of underground rock classics (PJ Harvey, White Stripes, Sonics). This is no watered down jazz-rock. The Thing take the most uncompromising aspects of both genres and turn up the heat - representing the best of cross-border collaboration. This is pure energy – free flowing improvisation and outbursts of anger contrasted by tight interplay and rhythmic savvy.

The box consists of the band’s two first records “The Thing” and “She Says,” two classics that have been unavailable for years. It also includes a CD of improv-sessions and a DVD featuring a live performance at the Øya festival with Thurston Moore.

Release date: TBA.

The Thing will also perform at by:Larm

sounds awesome, have to put it on my wishlist.

Looks like a busy year for these northen dudes:

http://www.dotshop.se/ds/release.php?code=STSJ105CD

...They have just returned from Japan where they have recorded two albums; one with both Jim O`Rourke and one with Otomo Yosihide. In January 2008 they went to Chicago to record their new studio album with Steve Albini (Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Pixes, Stooges). And as this was not enough; Smalltown Superjazzz will also release a box-set titled “Now And Forever” with their two first (deleted) albums (originally released on Universal), a new impro session as well as a DVD with The Thing with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on guitar.

Awsome news. Thanks Moshe!

coming on June 2nd!!!

TRACKLISTING:

The box contains:
The Thing (2000) CD
She Knows (2001) CD
Live at Oya (2005) DVD
Gluttony (2007) CD

RELEASE DATE:
2. JUNE 2008

This 4 disc box set contains The Thing`s longtime deleted and out of print first albums “The Thing” from 2000 and “She Knows (with Joe McPhee)” from 2001, both released on the now defunct Universal imprint Crazy Wisdom. We are very proud that we now can reissue these two classics again. The debut album features 4 compositions by Don Cherry and two by The Thing themselves. “She Knows” features one Cherry composition, as well as compositions by James Blood Ulmer, Frank Lowe, Joe McPhee and the great “To Bring You My Love” by PJ Harvey. Also part of the box set is a new and never released 44 minutes impro suite, titled “Gluttony”, that was recorded in 2005 at the great Atlantis Studio in Stockholm. And then there is a DVD with the concert that The Thing did at Oslo`s Oya Festival in 2005 with Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth on guitar. This is free music explosion, or as John Corbett writes in the box`s liner notes “no cover, no roof, no safety, no home”. In addition to John Corbett`s liner notes the original sleeve notes from “The Thing” by Don Cherry`s son Eagle Eye Cherry is also included. The box and the booklet are designed by Rune Mortensen.

Liner notes:
In 1913, reviewing the notorious Armory Show, an exhibition that forever shifted American art and introduced much of the European avant- garde to the U.S., an art critic for the New York Times attempted to slam Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" by saying it resembled "an explosion in a shingle factory." Just for the fun of it, let's take this critic seriously. What would that mean, an "explosion in a shingle factory"? Why that description in particular? Duchamp's now-famous painting does entail the transfer of motion into the stillness of a static work of art, the borrowing of energy from one medium for use in another. A detonation of sorts, yes, and one that functions formally and structurally – with multiple planes that vaguely resemble shingles – but also in terms of the whole passive and conventional notion of what constitutes a painting. Duchamp placed a little incendiary device – not even the biggest bomb in his arsenal, one must admit – in the sanctuary of the museum. Shingles, why them? They're orderly, first of all. They fit together in a grid, arranged as a snug system, and when they are placed atop a building, they shelter it, keep it dry and warm and pleasant. Shingles, even in a factory, are an excellent metaphor for the neat and orderly life, the life in which all planes snuggle up into a watertight lid. They are not designed to be in motion, but to lay still, indeed to resist movement in the harshest windstorm. To blow them up, to send them flying into the air, that is to radically rethink them, the question their function, perhaps their necessity. If the building blocks of classical perspective are, figuratively speaking, the shingles of traditional representational artwork in the West, then our silly critic is perhaps more correct that we – and he – might have thought. The Thing is an explosion in a shingle factory, too. Using energy to set things in motion, Gustafsson and Haker-Flaten and Nilssen-Love blow open a hole in the complacency of improvised music. To turn to idioms from another musical genre, they "tear the roof off the sucker." With the tools of free jazz and garage punk, they rip the shingles off one by one, flinging them into the air with glee, like skeet-shooters winging their clay pigeons aloft. It is a joyful disruption, making leaky- roof music in which the symmetries of obvious pattern are quickly dispensed in favor of whorls, dust-devils, micro-bursts, and full-on tornadoes. When The Thing moves full-throttle into fifth-gear, their music is a monsoon. To be a shingle factory in a monsoon, such a pity! Take the band that has best integrated these energy musics, jazz and rock, and add to them the guitarist who has consistently bridged the realms of pop and experimental. Your result is, perhaps, a violent end for shingles of all variety. No cover, no roof, no safety, no home. Open water. Where are you going to hide from the rain? No worry, don't try, accept the refreshment of a bracing drench. Face the sky, look at the tattered remains of Duchamp's roof, listen for the bright sounds of raindrops on the broken shingles.

John Corbett, Chicago, August 2007

WOW! Thurston is on fire on this DVD (which is pro shot).

on fire ?!

yeah, some hooligan sprayed him with deodorant and lit a match against his BRAINS

I saw the Thing w/ Zu live once and found it mediocre. Also thought the Original Silence disk was way overrated.
Still, if there is some Thurston flamethrower skronk aktion on this live DVD, I'll doubtless check it out

It is a shame that Thurston joined the band only on the last part of the gig but the DVD is great anyway. The other cds are cool too with lot of Don Cherry covers and even a PJ Harvey cover.

The Thing are great. One of the best free jazz assemblies.

and
The First Original Silence is a contemporary free jazz classic, therefore, any assessment that regards it as any less only points to it being underappreciated, undervalued, and underrated.

Or at least such is my ha opinion, whorefrost. It's far from being
"overrated," and your post points towards just why that is the case.

What don't these guys play?

June 17, 2008
You need a lot of hyphens to describe The Thing.
The Swedish-Norwegian trio - (from top to bottom) bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love - has free-jazz cred, but its material includes not only avant-garde jazz (Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman), but also rock ranging from "Louie Louie" to the White Stripes and PJ Harvey. Here's the catch: They play it with a punk sensibility. And when they team up with a rock band like the Cato Salsa Experience, all heck breaks loose. What results? Hold the hyphen key down, because here it comes: a sort of free-jazz-punk-rock-garage-band-dance-metal free-for-all.
I got caught up on The Thing's catalog recently and - well, holy cow. These guys don't sit still. Each album has a unique aesthetic; a good place to start is "Garage," which blends straight-ahead rock beats with skronk blowing. I'm partial to "Two Bands and a Legend: I See You Baby," which combines The Thing and the Cato Salsa Experience with free-jazz saxophonist Joe McPhee. The record features just three tunes, but do they ever run the gamut: McPhee's own "Nation Time," Donald Ayler's "Our Prayer," and - hyphen alert - a 13-minute funk-punk-jazz version of Groove Armada's dance-floor hit "I See You Baby."
Wish I could make it to Vancouver this month, because The Thing will play the jazz festival there with Boston-bred saxophonist Ken Vandermark, celebrating the release of their new album, "The Thing With Ken Vandermark: Immediate Sound," which features just one tune, a 38-minute improvisation called "Hide Out." Technically it's one song, but it goes everywhere imaginable in those precious minutes. That's a good Thing. (Steve Greenlee)

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/artic...s_play?mode=PF