Free Jazz on Norwegian artists Trygve Seim (sax) and Frode Haltli (accordion) and their new collaboration album "Yeraz" on ECM: http://freejazz-stef.blogspot. com/2008/10/trygve-seim-frode- haltli-yeraz-ecm-2008.html
1. The Necks – Townsville ( Milk of Fish / ReR ) MP3: Townsville (Excerpt) Last October – in what normally would have been nothing but a typical autumn week with darkness setting in early and people wrapped in warm clothes, hiding from the cold wind – I experienced what was most definitely the musical highlight of the year for me. Maybe even the musical highlight of many, many years. That entire week the city was besieged by music and film dedicated to "minimalist" composer and legend Philip Glass. Every [...]

Photo credit: omnia Mt Macedon Cemetery in Victoria, Australia is home to Peter Schipperheyn 's dramatic sculpture "Asleep". It is one of the most intriguing and beautiful contemporary works of art I've come across in recent years. The beautiful contradiction between the young women's vulnerability and the unsettling surroundings of the cemetery. The way her right hand lovingly grips the edge of the tombstone. It simply takes my breath away every time I look at it. The story goes that the artist was commissioned by a woman to make this sculpture [...]

Norwegian Accordionist Frode Haltli has crafted an album of both cinematic beauty and experimental playfulness. Combining his accordion compositions that translate a sweeping melancholic sadness with percussive pieces and workings with voice; his album Passing Images is another of this year's stunning neo-classical triumphs. Haltli has a knack for recontextualizing traditional themes in his native folk music into a modern setting and combining this approach with a skillful ability to improvise around those themes. The music is exuberant and crushing; playful but reposed. All the sounds that wander into Haltli's life seem to be wrapped up and squeezed [...]