Posts Tagged ‘apparatjik’

Apparatjik to perform in Fosnavåg

Magne on stage at Roskilde, July 2012

Magne on stage at Roskilde, July 2012

Apparatjik will be performing at the opening of the new concert house in Fosnavåg, Norway, on October 23rd. This was announced at a press conference today.

They will be joined by The Norwegian Radio Orchestra for a special performance of music made by movements captured on surveillance cameras placed around Fosnavåg – similar to the “Everybody is a composer!” project in 2012.

This news follows an announcement on the official Apparatjik website – “Everybody is clapping!” – where they invite fans to record video clips of themselves clapping their hands, to be used in connection with a new recording project.

Apparatjik’s last performance was in Copenhagen in May 2013.

Articles:
Vikebladet   Sunnmørsposten   Herøynytt

Magne in N Magazine

Picture from N Magazine

Picture from N Magazine

Magne is profiled in a 5-page article in the May 2013 issue of airline Norwegian’s in-flight magazine N.

The article focuses on Apparatjik and the Apparatjik Suite, his gallery Stolper + Friends, and the other projects he’s involved with in the new Tjuvholmen art district in Oslo, including mentoring young art students.

The whole interview, which was done by UK writer Lucille Howe at The Thief on March 25th, can be found online here (in English).

Apparatjik in Copenhagen, May 3rd

Copenhagen, May 3rd

Copenhagen, May 3rd

Magne, Martin and Jonas did their first Apparatjik concert of the year on Friday, May 3rd, with a 14-song set at the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) in Copenhagen.

A reviewer at Danish music website Gaffa praises the “extremely well planned audiovisual bombardment of the senses” and gives the concert 5 out of 6 stars. Although he feels the music lacks an emotional quality, he says the show “worked incredibly well throughout its compact 49 minutes”.

Guy Berryman attended Magne’s exhibition opening in London on Thursday, but did not join the others for the concert in Copenhagen. The busy Coldplay-bassist last performed with Apparatjik in March 2011, and has been replaced with a stand-in at every performance since then.

Lowell had taken the trip over from Canada, though, and came on stage to do her two songs “Shake Him Off” and “The Birds”.

YouTube videos (by Carlos and others):
Intro / Josie   Do It Myself   Supersonic Sound   Tell The Babes (w/ Magne on vocals)
Shake Him Off   The Birds   Deadbeat

Meanwhile in Oslo, a new sculpture by Apparatjik has apparently been installed outdoors at Tjuvholmen.

Apparatjik to play in Copenhagen

The cube is coming to Copenhagen

The cube is coming to Copenhagen

Apparatjik will play at the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen on May 3rd, gaffa.dk reports.

Last summer the band presented a spectacular show for an audience of 50.000 people at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival, but this time they’ll be playing inside the cube.

Tickets are available now, from billetlugen.dk.

 
In other Magne news, he presented In Transit at Tronsmo bookstore in Oslo last week (February 13th) with his right arm in a sling.

He didn’t say what had happened, but he has previously broken his left arm in three separate snowboard accidents.

Luckily Magne is left-handed, so he had no problems signing the book.

Apparatjik Suite opens at The Thief

The so-called Apparatjik Suite, which has been designed by Magne and the other members of Apparatjik, opened at the new luxury hotel The Thief in Oslo on Friday, 8 February. Tini Flaat has posted an instagram photo of Magne, Jonas and Martin at the opening.

“Apparatjik’s music and art, with its creativity and positive madness, appeals to us at The Thief. We let them do whatever they wanted when designing the suite, and the result is impressive”, Marcus Majewski (The Thief executive officer) says.

The suite’s interior includes pixelated carpets, video installations, antlers on the walls and a mirror ball in the bathroom.

“We have created a small corner of the Apparatjik World”, Magne says in a press release. “We wanted to design a room that would make whoever stays here smile and shake their heads at the same time. One thing that the members of Apparatjik have in common is that we have all used a disproportionate amount of our lives staying in hotel rooms. With the Apparatjik Suite at The Thief, our starting point was that it isn’t necessarily the hallmark of a good hotel that all the rooms are identical.”

The suite also includes music by Apparatjik and a large selection of their own favorite albums.

“Everyone thinks their personal taste in music is the best in the world, and we’re no exception. We’re also hoping to eventually offer a growing selection of music that you won’t be able to hear anywhere else – maybe some material that hasn’t been released yet, and obscure projects that we feel deserve more attention. In that respect, the Apparatjik Suite is guaranteed to be the radio station with the fewest listeners anywhere in the world. Now, that’s what we call exclusive”, Magne says.

Visitors to the The Thief can also try out Magne’s Climax Cardgame from 2007, of which the hotel has bought 7 of the 20 copies in existence. There will also be a copy of Magne’s new book In Transit in every room.

“There are some hotels around the world that have made a serious effort to create an arena for experiencing art, and when it works it’s a win-win situation”, Magne says.

If you would like a stay in the Apparatjik Suite, the suite is now open for booking on The Thief’s website.

Apparatjik in Aftenposten K magazine

The cover of Aftenposten K, January 2013

Magazine cover

Magne and a few other Apparatjiks are on the cover of the January 2013 issue of Norwegian culture magazine Aftenposten K. Inside there is an 8-page interview with Magne, Martin Terefe and Jonas Bjerre, which was done in connection with the apparatjik xmess extravaganza performance in Oslo last month.

According to the magazine, Apparatjik were recently asked to do a tour of the U.S., but they declined the offer.

“That’s because we only do the projects that we want to. Agreeing to do a tour means that you also have to be interviewed, you have to sell yourself, promote heavily. But then you’re suddenly doing what you wanted to break away from in the first place”, Magne says.

In the interview he also talks about how they prepared for the festival concert at Roskilde, by imagining that this was the first time anyone had come up with the radical idea of performing on stage in front of an audience.

But as we know, they have later played inside the cube again.

“The cube still exists. It’s a kind of refuge that we sometimes escape into. But it shouldn’t become an institution. It was exciting to see the [audience] reactions in the beginning, but now it’s become just another tool”, Martin Terefe says.

“That’s true. But I think that if we hadn’t performed inside the cube to start with, Roskilde would never have turned out as it did either. (…) Roskilde felt incredibly new and unconventional, because we emerged from the cube. However strange that may seem”, Magne says.

The magazine is now available on Norwegian newsstands and as an iPad edition.

Picture from Aftenposten K, January 2013

Magne, Jonas, Martin, Lowell and Rudolph
(Picture from Aftenposten K)

“apparatjik xmess extravaganza”

Picture from YouTube video. Magne on the left.

Magne was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo yesterday, as Apparatjik hosted a very different Christmas concert entitled apparatjik xmess extravaganza: santa bells bob.

Based on the Apparatjik installation Everybody is a composer, where the movements of museum visitors were recorded and turned into music, the composition was performed by the boys choir Sølvguttene. You can see a video clip from the performance on YouTube and a gallery on Flickr (by Alyssa Nilsen).

“This is a Sølvguttene Christmas concert, done Apparatjik-style. We’re calling it a “xmess extravaganza” because we prefer big words over smaller words. They are easier to notice”, Magne told Aftenposten.

“For us this is definitely a form of extreme sport, a musical meeting between anarchy and strict order. But the kids just think this is fun. They don’t care as much about following familiar patterns as adults do, and like trying new things”, the choir’s conductor, Fredrik Otterstad, said.

Apparatjik at Astrup Fearnley, September 29th

Apparatjik and Lowell, September 29th (From YouTube video)

Between 2500 and 3000 people found their way to the Apparatjik concert at the new Astrup Fearnley museum in Oslo last night.

Here are some YouTube videos, posted by Alyssa Nilsen, “eveghost” and “realme978”:

Supersonic Sound   Unknown song   Arrow and Bow
Shake Him Off   Snow Crystals   Josie
Pakt / Control Park / Time Police / Supersonic Sound / Do It Myself

Apparatjik preview concert

Apparatjik did a preview concert for press and industry people at the Astrup Fearnley museum last night. Some videos have been posted on YouTube by “eveghost”:

Deadbeat   Arrow and Bow   Pakt/Control Park   Unknown song/Superpositions

There are also some rehearsal videos from earlier on, posted by Alyssa Nilsen.

The main event – tonight’s free concert at Astrup Fearnley – starts at 9:00 PM and features a new cube.

“The new cube is made especially for this show. We were originally planning on positioning it above the water, but they’re expecting a spring tide, and combined with 220 volts through our instruments that wasn’t such a good idea”, Magne says in an interview with Dagsavisen today.

Guy Berryman once again seems to be busy with Coldplay, so he’s not taking part.

Astrup Fearnley museum opens

Outside the new museum, September 27th

Magne, along with Jonas Bjerre and Martin Terefe, attended the official opening of the new Astrup Fearnley museum in Oslo today. There’s a photo gallery from the event at vg.no.

Afterwards, they were guests on the radio programme Kulturnytt on NRK P2, to talk about their first impressions of the museum and the upcoming Apparatjik performance there on Saturday.

Magne was asked how the Apparatjik concept will fit in at the Astrup Fearnley museum:

“I don’t think it fits at all, because we’ve made it a specialty to fall between two stools. Most people in the art world think we’re way too pop-oriented. And those expecting to hear pop music think we’re too arty. So we have ended up somewhere in between, where we don’t manage to connect with anyone. But we do create music that we like, and the songs are quite structured. We’re not attempting to create very inaccessible stuff. We just don’t want to do things the way we’ve used to in our main projects.

We were shocked when we entered the stage at Roskilde this summer and looked out on an audience of 40.000 – 50.000 people, who stood with their jaws dropped for the first 15 minutes and then ended up jumping up and down to music they had never heard before. It was very exciting. I had never entered the stage before, without having at least a few hits to get the audience going. So it was incredibly fun. I think people with a certain sense of humour will feel this is something they should witness. And it takes place on Saturday at 9:00 PM”, Magne said.

“It’s important to stress that this is not a concert for the elite, but a free concert for the people of Oslo – and anyone who comes from out of town. We’re going to create a lot of noise, so this is not a part of those posh opening ceremonies”, he added.

The whole interview is available as an MP3 file at nrk.no.

Tonight, Apparatjik and Lowell did a “secret” warm-up show at DogA – the Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture in Oslo. A few pictures were posted on Instagram by Monika and Tini from The Voice.

Be also sure to check out a couple of new videos from the Roskilde concert on Vimeo, here and here.

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