Helsinki, February 2010

The new Scorch Trio recorded in New York city last December, and that music will be mixed in Oslo in May. You'll soon be able to hear some of it on our www.myspace.com/scorchtrio site. Frank Rosaly brings a new color to our band sound, and I'm greatly looking forward to getting it released sometime next fall.

Elliot Sharp recently invited me to participate in a compilation of guitarists which will soon be released on Clean Feed Records with the title “I Never Metaguitar”. Among the other guitarists featured are Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, Brandon Ross and Michael Gregory, so I feel honored to be in such auspicious company... thanks for the invite, Elliot!

UMO big band is releasing a series of cds with recordings made by the Finnish National Radio YLE during the past several decades. One of my favorite original pieces is “Primal Mind&rdquo, a suite for big band and Krakatau Trio, recorded live by YLE in 1991. My friends Tom Nekjudow and Uffe Krokfors make up the Krakatau of that period, and our playing is quite fierce, matched by that of UMO. The release date is scheduled for early fall.

On March 13th I'm performing a new work by Jovanka Trbojevic called “the Ashvameda Horse”, for solo electric guitar and tape. It's quite complex, lasts about 15 minutes, and makes serious demands on all my playing abilities. YLE is recording it, so who knows, maybe it'll pop up on a future solo guitar record.

JURMO is the name of our quartet with Juhani Aaltonen, Uffe Krokfors and Markku Ounaskari, and you can hear some of our stuff on our new site which is still under construction, www.myspace.com/jurmo. We have one gig in March, but plan to gig more regularly next fall.

The trio that I toured with last October, with Peter Nilsson on drums and Thommy Andersson on bass, has just put up three short films on youtube, and for once the sound and image quality is very good, so just type my name in the search box and you'll find them. We're planning to tour in December.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=boxymusic&search=Search