The first album from the project - Studio 1 - was released in January 2008 on Rune Grammofon. www.runegrammofon.com
Reactions to Studio 1:
The Box four-piece... mash up rattling electronics with serious axe-wankery and sonorous viola, pinned down by a constantly revving rhythm section, always seemingly on the edge of imploding on itself. All is functional, from the blank cover art to the untitled but numbered tracks. All takes are live and in one, raw as fuck and capable of bringing dirt and heat to bare spaces.
- Plan B
Stunning improvisation carving out a subtle yet menacing slice of darkcore free jazz with a real tingling melodic spine. Glorious.
- Experimusic
...making music no-one else comes close to...
- TV2 Nettavisen
With the sort of pedigree described above, Studio 1 was never going to be a gingham-decked picnic. More appropriately, the group might be characterised as the vicious thunderstorm and crazed bulls likely to destroy such a peaceful event...This is thrilling music that is by turns frantic, incessant, nervously becalmed, morbid, threatening and noisome. Each moment is information-rich with detail and tense interplay. Studio 1 throws down a gauntlet - the rewards for picking it up are manifold. More please.
- The Milk Factory
The disc opens with some echo chamber noise, like the sound of old school video games played in Bill Dixon’s cryptosphere...On many tracks, Box creates big caverns of sound, filling them with muted transmissions from the firmament...
- Dusted Magazine
This is visceral, uncompromising music... a fruitful meeting of brilliant minds
- Cokemachineglow
This avant-supergroup wastes no time whipping up a free-rock freak out that must have had the windows rattling.
- Jazzwise
The result is formidable, a blend of electronica and free jazz glued together with noise and rock, and referances can be found naturally enough in the bands the individuals play in, but more as something you sense rather than a direct likeness.
- Dagsavisen
...all four musicians clearly at the top of their game, responding to each other superbly and capturing some inspired moments, sounding like a more sinister version of Tortoise.
- Clash
This is jazz rock, but there's no need to shudder. This is a jazz rock informed by the old and the ultra-modern, with jabs of electronics jabbing the jamming into more abstract terrain...
- Uncut
The chemistry between the players is almost supernatural. The question in my mind before I heard Studio 1 was simple: "But will it rock?" Without any reservation, it absolutely does.
- The Silent Ballet
Box is like an exotic starter, which burns in your throat and causes sweat on the brow.
- Geiger
Studio 1 not only represents the debut of a significant new group on the electronic improv scene, but a transatlantic supergroup at that...Like much of the electronics-based improv coming out of Northwestern Europe, Box doesn't spend much time working within conventional concepts of form or development...
- All About Jazz
Instead of the expected rock fusion monster Box turn out to be more mercurial, cleverly shifting from soaring Mahavishnu Orchestra guitar excursions and itchily drummed glitch rock embellishments to the kind of Frank Zappa-styled compositional gymnastics that you either love or loathe.
- The Wire
...shifts between subtle compositions and full-on anarchy...
- Ikon
...the tracks presented here come together as a well composed suite of out there space rock/free jazz tracks rather than the live-to-tape improvisation that they truly are.
- Brainwashed
Sheer, unadulterated, improvisation of the craziest kind....a musical masterpiece of the highest nature...
- Kruger Magazine
...42 minutes of power, fury and disciplined outrage
- Gaz-Eta
It boggles the mind to know that these guys had never met, let alone played together, before entering the studio.
- Metropolitan
1) Audiomachie (6:21) 2) Une ombre vacille en serpentin virevoltant (6:58) 3) Bruissement de griserie (9:55) 4) Propensity to go forward (7:36) 5) Drawing of a Back with a Mouth (4:24) 6) Second Life (3:50)
(39:12)
- The project was about trying to explore different poetry styles, always with different instrumentations and musical structures because I don't want to repeat a single one - An album not directly linked to the four previous ones, but with the impossible to avoid come back to fetish themes - Second Life is about the technological phenomena, but I got better things to do with my life than spending it on the clone of a capitalist society - We might as well hope for a real bankrupcy for all of us, it would be worth it to kill capitalism
Most of you will just want to listen to the music made available. Well, here it is with great streaming (right after MA VIE est ICI which is a reminder of my previous album conclusion) http://www.freakywaves.com
Mats/Morgan Band gigs Lineup: Mats and Morgan with Gustaf Hielm on bass (x Meshuggah)
June 4 /BLAEST (Trondheim/Norway) June 6 /Cosmopolite (Oslo/Norway) July 29 /Era New Horizons Int. Film Festival (Warsaw/Poland) August 16 / Zappanale (feat Denny Walley)(Bad Doberan/Germany) October 17 / Valjevo Jazz fest (Valjevo/Serbia)
Morgan Ågren drumclinics in Chile. (November, date and venues to be announced).
Just droppin in to make sure your keepin it BRUTAL! If you haven't checked our page out recently, give our songs a listen and tell us what you think. We appreciate your time, Horns UP HIGH!!!
