Our new mixtape comes from the Norwegian transcendent artist Kjetil Jerve and producer Stian Balducci with a recording specially crafter for CLOT Mag and getting inspiration from their more recent album.

Tokyo Tapes: Piano Recycle, released on Dugnad Records in April 2021, is an epic archival collection fusing ambient, drone and experimentalist textures. Performed with a live emotion in mind, this aspect of the collection adds to the innovative spontaneity and the duo’s dynamic musicianship.

Jerve is an artist known for his genre-defying curiosity, adventures transcending dogma and style and has been running the Oslo-based label Dugnad rec since 2016. He has been an important figure in the next wave of Norwegian jazz musicians, and likewise, Balducci, although coming from strictly electronic musicianship, has moved towards extended jazz and improvised genres. The clear jazz influences are felt moving throughout the 18 track album, in which classicism and electricity combine, crafted through fuzzy textures, cinematic soundscapes and hauntingly beautiful melody paintings.

The album centres around Kjetil’s unique piano musings, it is then moulded by Balducci through creative warping in order to design and sketch new instruments through the initial medium of the piano. The result is a record that feels both archaic and contemporary, clearly drawing inspiration from and acknowledging Alva Noto/Sakamoto and Bugge/Schwarz as predecessors, but at the same time, residing on its own plane of artistry. The artists suggest a promise to provide a euphoric connection: the record asks to be listened to in a place of nature, free of distractions when its power can be felt most vividly.

For this mixtape, they share, they wanted to display a balance between the eclectic and narrow, selecting from a broad spectrum of inspirations and melding it together with a long take of piano improvisation recorded exclusively for CLOT: It sort of sounds like what could be a live DJ set from Stian’s studio with Kjetil’s piano built-in. There are also some gold nuggets from new and upcoming releases happening here in Norway, and it’s always really nice to present our peers’ work in a worldwide context.

The artists also request their audiences to engage with the listening: Please let us know in the comments how you experienced it, and be sure to check out our socials to take part in our common future.

Tracklist:

Stian Balducci, Kjetil Jerve - 4.5 Goen Slo (edit)

Burial - Subtemple

Ben Frost - Forgetting You is Like Breathing Water

Robert Turman - Flux 3

Ø - Scene 1

Tortusa - I Know This Place

Porter Ricks - Biokinetics 2

Damata - I Say Damata, You Say Matoma

Kim Dürbeck - Tma4ever

Laraaji - Trance Celestial Movement 4

Stian Balducci, Kjetil Jerve - 3.2 MIN

Lövgren - Car Crash

Bendik Baksaas, Maria Brinch - Inya Lake II

Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto - Uoon II

Basic Channel - Mutism

Loscil - Discrete Entropy

Biosphere & Maâlem Mohamed Kouyou - Boiler Room Marrakech

Tortusa, Jo David Meyer Lysne - Jazz Spot Candy

Stian Balducci, Kjetil Jerve - 4.5 Goen Slo