Let's introduce The Alvaret Ensemble! Last year Kleefstra|Pruiksma|Kleefstra and Greg Haines shared stages frequently. Collaborating on festivals such as CTM (Berlin), Approximation (Düsseldorf), Into The Great Wide Open (Vlieland, NL) and Le Guess Who (Utrecht, NL) was working out so well that the four decided to hook up more often. The quartet got together and recorded for three nights in a row in the Grunewald church in Berlin with several musician friends and decided to form The Alvaret Ensemble. The debut album is scheduled for late November, featuring Iden Reinhart (Strië), Hilary Jeffery, Peter Broderick, Nils Frahm and Martyn Heyne. More about that soon-ish.
The Alvaret Ensemble is also involved in a kind of artist in residence project in the slipstream of last year's Seeljocht. We are moving temporary to Iceland and will make music there with some wonderful Icelandic musicians such as Kira Kira, Eirikur Orri Ólafsson, Ingi Gardar Erlendsson and Borgar Magnason. We aim for a release of these recordings off course and will perform several nights in a row on the Dutch festival Oerol on the Frisian island Terschelling. Also our video brothers of 33one3rd are part of the gang. There's more to the project, but first... hey ho Iceland. Heilsa!
picture by martyn heyne