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Eivind Aarset

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Eivind Aarset is a Norwegian guitarist and composer, born in 1961. His style is associated with nu jazz and electronic music, and he often processes his guitar with many effects. Besides his own work as a bandleader he played with Ray Charles, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ute Lemper, Ketil Bjørnstad, Andy Sheppard, Arild Andersen and Nils Petter Molvær. He also worked with Bill Laswell, Jon Hassell, Jan Garbarek, David Sylvian and Marilyn Mazur. According to the source, he recorded more than 150 albums with other artists.

Music and breakthrough

His debut album Électronique Noire from 1998 was described by the New York Times as one of the best electro-jazz albums since Miles Davis. Light Extracts in 2001, Connected in 2004 and Sonic Codex in 2007 followed, among others, all for the label Jazzland. In 2012 he made Dream Logic for ECM, with Jan Bang and Erik Honoré for production and sound design. At the Punkt Festival in Kristiansand in 2013 he played with Arve Henriksen, Jan Bang, Erik Honoré and Ingar Zach, and his Dream Logic concert appeared on a list of the best live shows of that year.

Influence

Aarset often uses the guitar not as a solo instrument but as a source of sound and space, processed with electronics and loops. He belongs to the generation of Norwegian musicians who linked jazz and electronics, and showed that in modern jazz a guitar can also serve as a plane of sound.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Dream Logic and notice how the guitar barely sounds like a guitar, but like a floating plane of sound. Can you hear the effects that stretch the notes and let them die away?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Categories: Artists