Nor Noise is a documentary – or rather an interview film –
about Noise music. Which is not music nor mere noise but something
in between.
Through
12 interviews with 12 highly diverse artists within the Noise scene,
answers are given to What is Noise? Where does it come from? How
do you work with sounds as your main instrument? The relationship
between Noise and popular culture is reflected upon, and Noise is
put into a historical context spanning from the Futurists and up
to todays laptop artists.
The
film contains a lot of rare concert footage with the artists. Featured
artists: TORE H. BØE, DAVID COTNER, MASAMI AKITA, LASSE MARHAUG,
TASHIMARU NAKAMURA, ARM, ASBJØRN FLØ, MAJA S.K. RATKJE,
KJELL RUNAR JENSSEN, FRANCISCO LÓPEZ, HELGE STEN and OTOMO
YOSHIHIDE.
Also
included on the DVD realease is a compilation CD of all original
material by norwegian artists DUO KANEL, DOMESTIC PURPOSE, JAZZKAMMER,
RYFYLKE, FE-MAIL, TORE HONORÉ BØE, CRAZY RIVER, KOBI,
ANDERS GJERDE, O.MELBY and NORWEGIAN NOISE ORCHESTRA. |
“This
film started out with me wanting to make a documentary about Lasse
Marhaug. But that had to include what happened on the especially
vibrant noise scene in Trondheim around the turn of the century.
And it had to include Tore H. Bøe, whom together with Lasse
organized it all.
This
was back in 2001. That year was seminal for Noise in Norway. The
compilation “Le Jazz Non” got rave reviews and made
the media aware of the fact that Norwegian Noise artists were having
success abroad. And a lot of big names came to Norway: Masami Akita,
Otomo Yoshihide, Tashimaru Nakamura, Francisco López. Suddenly
“everybody” talked about Noise music. And I was in the
middle of it all with a camera, asking every artist I met the same
simple question: “What is Noise music?”
This
film collects twelve different answers from twelve very different
artists. Even though they work differently, have different musical
backgrounds and seem to have very little in common musically, they
belong to the same tradition. Through the interviews the history,
aesthetics and technical aspects of Noise is covered. That’s
the red line of this film.
I
never had any money making this film, so the artists interviewed
are the ones I had the opportunity to meet. But this isn’t
a comprehensive history about noise music or about the artists anyway,
it’s a documentation of some of the ideas and techniques that
make up Noise music. Another thing: This film was always meant to
be released as a DVD; hence the structure. Also I wanted to make
a simple, clean cut film where the visual expression didn’t
emulate the Noise music. I wanted to make a film where the artist
got the time to say what they had to say about what they were doing.
And that’s this.
(By
the way: The Masami Akita interview – it’s supposed
to be like that…)”
Tom
Hovinbøle, July 2004 |