Posts Tagged ‘magne furuholmen’

The Voice premieres in Norway

The Norwegian version of talent contest The Voice premiered on TV2 last night, with Magne as one of the four mentors.

The whole thing opened with the mentors performing Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”, and there’s a video clip of the performance on TV2.no.

Magne ended up with one talent for his team in the first episode; Martin Halla, who sang Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know”.

The premiere was well-received by both the viewers and the press, with ‘5 out of 6’ ratings from VG and Dagbladet and a lot of positive feedback in social media.

Update: The whole 1 hour 10 minute show now seems to be available for free on TV2.no here.

 

In an interview with Dagbladet on Thursday, Magne said that he doesn’t regret taking part in the show:

“Many people around me have felt that I didn’t need to take the chance of doing this [show]. But if I hadn’t, someone else – potentially less suited – would have done it instead.”

“I have more experience than most people when it comes to this business and operating on an international level. Why shouldn’t I be able to share of that experience?”

“I hope I’ll encounter someone that I’ll want to nurture musically, and in a longer perspective than just this TV project.”

“If we’re able to create an international success, that would be the absolute coolest thing that could happen in my life at the moment”, Magne says.

 

In connection with The Voice, Magne has also set up an official Twitter account (@mfuruholmen), which he will use mainly in connection with the show and the talents he’ll choose. During the show, messages written in advance will appear on the TV-screen and on Twitter simultanously.

In his first message, he wrote (translated):

“help, now I’ve also joined twitter! i’m mainly intending to use it to promote my talents. all the weird stuff is elsewhere.”

So expect most of his messages to be in Norwegian, for the time being.

 

There will be 18 episodes of The Voice in total; blind auditions (7 episodes), battle rounds (6 episodes) and live shows (5 episodes). The final show takes place on May 25th.

Apparatjik release 24-bit studio-quality download

Square Peg recording session in Norway. 
(Picture from bowers-wilkins.com)

This week, Apparatjik are offering a 24-bit studio-quality version of their second album Square Peg in a Round Hole as a free download on their Facebook page (as “Draft 7”).

This is a high-quality FLAC version (472 MB) of the original 12-track album, which first appeared in lower MP3 quality as part of the “Apparatjik World” iPad app back in November and later as “Draft 1” in the ongoing fan collaboration project on Facebook.

Apparatjik are releasing this version of the album in collaboration with British loudspeaker company Bowers and Wilkins and their online community Society Of Sound.

“we go to quite an extent to make our music sound the way we want it to and it’s great to be able to offer a 24 bit version of the first draft of the album through society of sound. this exclusive release ‘square peg in a round hole – draft 7’ is mastered at abbey road studios by geoff pesche straight from our studio masters so what we listened to in studio is what you will hear”, the band says in a new blog post on the Society Of Sound website.

The whole blog post, where the band talk about the recording process and the fan collaboration project can be found here.

Video clip: first preview of The Voice

Magne says:
“My goal is to find an artist with international potential, a super talent. But if that doesn’t work out, I’ll settle for just winning the contest”.

This promo clip appeared on the official The Voice Facebook page.

The Voice premiere date

The four mentors on the Norwegian version of The Voice: Sondre Lerche, Magne Furuholmen, Hanne Sørvaag and Yosef Wolde-Mariam.

TV2 has now announced the premiere date of The Voice – Norges Beste Stemme, which is Friday 27 January 2012.

Another four taping dates have also been announced:

Wednesday 25 January
Thursday 26 January
Monday 30 January
Tuesday 31 January

The first episodes, focusing on the initial blind auditions, were taped earlier this month. Apparently, the audience also got to see an “exclusive mentor performance”.

The episodes taping at the end of January will feature duels between the contestants.

If you live in the Oslo area, info on how to get tickets can be found at TV2.no.

Exhibition at Blaafarveværket

Magne will be exhibiting at the Blaafarveværket museum in Norway next summer – more specifically in the wooden barn at Nyfossum.

Sverre Følstad at Blaafarveværket says this will be the first time Magne revisits previous art projects to present a retrospective exhibition. It will apparently include “monumental woodcuts”.

The exhibition is open from 19 May to 23 September 2012. A PDF folder can be downloaded here.

Apparatjik invite fans to collaborate on new album

The new Apparatjik album Square Peg in a Round Hole, which was released exclusively for iPads last month, is now available for everyone to stream and download on Apparatjik’s Facebook.

It features Magne on lead vocals at the beginning of “Combat Disco Music” and at the end of “Control Park”.

However, this is only the “first draft” of the album. Apparatjik now invite fans to submit ideas and even remix the songs, resulting in a new “draft” being released each week until the final version of the album is released on 21 February 2012.

Full album stems in WAV-format can now be downloaded from Apparatjik.com, where you can find further instructions on how to proceed.

UK music site thefourohfive.com quotes a new press release about the album project:

“Apparatjik is chiefly a conduit for creative trip-wiring: first you find out how a thing works, then you break it. all children learn this way. all adults too. on the new album we have collaborated with other artists and now we want to invite our fans and other musicians to contribute by commenting, voting for ideas or taking raw elements from the album and work with, embellish and submit back to us. we have collaborated with our fans in this way for visual projects like ‘everybody is a pixel’ at the Neue Nationgalerie in Berlin and our new iPad magazine ‘apparatjik world’. this time we’ll try with music.”

Thefourohfive.com also reveals ambitious concert plans for next year:

“The group are also set to bring ‘Apparatjik World’ (iPad Magazine/new album/live performances) to 11 cities starting mid 2012 including London, Oslo and Copenhagen and their first dates in the US. More on that soon.”

Echo opens in Oslo, to great reviews

Some of the monotypes on display at Stolper + Friends 
(Picture from VG)

Magne’s new solo exhibition Echo opened at Stolper + Friends in Oslo yesterday.

It consists of four large monotypes on hospital sheets, originally intended for Futura Plus, and a selection of twelve smaller monotypes on sheets and paper.

Although commercially successfull, Magne’s art hasn’t always been embraced by art critics. But Echo gets a glowing review by VG’s Lars Elton, who gives the exhibition a 5 out of 6 rating and describes Magne as an innovator in his field:

“This is an exhibition that takes the field of art a step further. Not only does Magne Furuholmen really make himself respected, he also moves graphic print techniques forward”, Elton writes.

“(…)Visual games with letters has been a dominating motif for Furuholmen since the 1990s. And you would think this theme had been worn out by now. But with these new works he reaches a new level, partly because the images are visually strong, but first and foremost because the letters and the words they form have been put into a meaningful context.

The works provide a level of seriousness and reflection that evoke emotions. When you add the groundbreaking formats and the innovative technique, this becomes an exhibition that moves the field of art a step forward”, Elton writes in his review.

Echo is on display at Stolper + Friends until January 15th.

 

Update: Before the official opening, the British Ambassador to Norway, Jane Owen, visited the exhibition. A picture of the ambassador with the three gallerists has been posted on the Stolper + Friends Facebook page.

And a 4-minute video interview with Magne from the opening can be seen at StyleTV.no.

 

Update II: Magne attended the launch party for a new Moods of Norway perfume in Oslo a few days later, on November 29th. See a picture from Dagbladet here.

a-ha albums on Top 100 list

Earlier this year, weekly newspaper Morgenbladet asked 100 Norwegian musicians, including Magne, to each set up a list of their ten favorite Norwegian albums.

The goal was to name the 100 best Norwegian albums of all time. Starting back in August, a new album has been revealed almost daily at mbtopp100.no.

Last week the top ten albums were announced, with a-ha at number two and three:

1. Radka Toneff/Steve Dobrogosz: Fairytales (1982)
2. a-ha: Scoundrel Days (1986)
3. a-ha: Hunting High and Low (1985)
4. Kjøtt: Kjøtt (1979)
5. Knutsen & Ludvigsen: Juba Juba (1983)
6. The Aller Værste: Materialtretthet (1980)
7. deLillos: Suser avgårde (1986)
8. Röyksopp: Melody A.M. (2001)
9. Garbarek/Jarrett/Danielsson/Christensen: Belonging (1974)
10. De Press: Block To Block (1981)

Number one on the list, Radka Toneff, was a talented jazz singer who died in 1982, only 30 years old. Magne had her album Fairytales at number two on his personal list.

Bendel's book

In connection with Morgenbladet’s list, ten small books have been published – one book about each of the top ten albums.

German a-ha fan Larissa Bendel has written the book about Hunting High and Low, in which she provides a basic overview of the songs and the recording process. The interesting part of the book can be found in the last chapter, which includes new e-mail interviews with Magne and Paul. They talk about how they feel about Hunting High and Low 25 years later and how it was to perform the full album in Oslo and London last year.

Norwegian author Frode Grytten was asked to write the book about Scoundrel Days. He has approached the book project in a very different way and has chosen to write a collection of surreal short stories, loosely connected to a-ha, instead.

Grytten's book

Each story is named after a song on the album (translated into Norwegian). In one of the more amusing stories, “The Weight Of The Wind”, 48-year old Paul Waaktaar-Savoy meets 24-year old Pål Waaktaar on the New York subway. In “Soft Rains of April” a couple who first met at an a-ha concert in Paris in 1991 meet up again in Oslo in December 2010 after ten years to attend the final a-ha concert together.

“It’s all fiction. I was given complete artistic freedom to write whatever I wanted in connection with Scoundrel Days. (…) The book turned into different short stories, or moments in time, about how I’ve experienced the band and their songs”, Grytten said in a VG interview earlier this month.

Both books can be ordered from online store bokkilden.no – but be aware that they are written in Norwegian and don’t contain any pictures.

 

BTW, if you’re interested in seeing which albums Magne voted for, here is his own top 10 list:

1. Susanne Sundfør: The Brothel (2010)
2. Radka Toneff/Steve Dobrogosz: Fairytales (1982)
3. Magnet: On Your Side (2003)
4. Jan Garbarek: Dis (1976)
5. Kjøtt: Op. (1981)
6. De Press: Block to Block (1981)
7. Motorpsycho: Demon Box (1993)
8. deLillos: Hjernen er alene (1989)
9. Jan Eggum: Nesten ikke tilstede (1993)
10. Röyksopp: Melody A.M. (2001)

New Apparatjik album

Apparatjik released the first issue of their Apparatjik World magazine yesterday, 11.11.11.

It’s a free app for iPads (size: 683 MB) containing videos, pictures, the Mike Perkins comic and lots of random stuff.

The magazine also includes a new 12-track Apparatjik album.

Here is the tracklist:

1. Time Police (3:20) – same as this one
2. Sequential (3:15)
3. Your Voice Needs Subtitles (4:03)
4. Signs of Waking (3:34)
5. Pakt (1:25)
6. Combat Disco (3:41) – same as this one
7. Do It Myself (3:07)
8. .,,. (Dot Comma Comma Dot) (5:13)
9. (Don’t Eat The Whole) Banana (3:22) – same as this one
10. Gzmo (4:14) – same as this one
11. Super-positions (1:30) – same as this one
12. Control Park (3:51) – same as this one

For those of you without an iPad, the album will be made available in other formats at a later date.

The next issue of Apparatjik World is released on 21 February 2012.

 

Update: The name of the new album is apparently Square Peg in a Round Hole.

“The Voice” taping dates

As mentioned earlier this fall, Magne will be one of four mentors on the talent show “The Voice – Norges Beste Stemme”, together with Sondre Lerche, Hanne Sørvaag and Yosef Wolde-Mariam.

TV2 has now posted the taping dates for the first ten episodes – the blind auditions, where the mentors initially can’t see the singers.

The dates are: 
Monday 5 December 
Tuesday 6 December 
Thursday 8 December 
Saturday 10 December 
Sunday 11 December

Two shows are taped back-to-back each of these nights, at Nydalen Studios in Oslo.

If you want to be in the audience, there are contact details in the TV2 article linked above.

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