Name: Cracks
Brand: Bendik Giske

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

STS381LP

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Colour

Clear

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2021-08-27

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

7072822381028

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / clear

Artist

Bendik Giske

Genre GB

Alternative / Modern

Label GB

Smalltown Supersound

Bendik Giske is a Norwegian saxophonist and performance artist, currently residing in Berlin. His unique sound is influenced by his background in dance and his sense of queerness, resulting in captivating performances that showcase the importance of the body. With circular breathing on the saxophone and a striking stage presence, Giske's music transcends traditional boundaries.
Through his music, Bendik Giske explores the connection between body and sound. Drawing from his experience in dance as a child, he brings an embodied approach to his saxophone playing. This physicality extends beyond technique; it is also reflected in his sense of queerness, which has shaped his own distinctive sound.
Bendik Giske's artistry can be experienced not only through recordings but also through live performances. His stage presence is mesmerizing as he immerses himself fully into each piece, creating an immersive experience for the audience. Whether you are listening to one of his albums or witnessing him perform live, Giske's music will leave a lasting impression.

Smalltown Supersound is a music label based in Oslo, Norway, that is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of jazz, rock, and electronic music. With a focus on new forms and innovative sounds, this label has become synonymous with cutting-edge music from both established and emerging artists.

Since its inception, Smalltown Supersound has been at the forefront of the music scene, consistently releasing groundbreaking albums that challenge traditional genres. The label's roster includes *artists* who are known for their unique approach to music-making and their ability to create immersive sonic experiences.

With an unwavering commitment to quality and artistic integrity, Smalltown Supersound continues to be a driving force in shaping the future of contemporary music. Whether you're a fan of jazz, rock or electronic genres or simply appreciate boundary-pushing artistry, this label offers a diverse range of releases that will captivate your senses and leave you wanting more.

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Bendik Giske (NO/DE) is an artist and saxophonist whose expressive use of physicality, vulnerability and endurance have already won him much critical acclaim. You can hear all of this in his debut album Surrender, released at the start of 2019 on Smalltown Supersound, which can be described as Giske stripped to the core: no overdubs, looping, or effects. Just his body, breath, the saxophone and a resonant physical space, plus lots of microphones.

The body is important for Giske, even more so than as an acoustic musician. Not just in the strength and muscle control required to accomplish circular breathing on the saxophone, the unusual technique he employs to mesmerizing effect. It’s also reflected in the tradition of dance he practiced as a child in Bali – where he split his time between Oslo with his artist parents – and enjoyed as part of an electronic music epiphany in his adopted hometown of Berlin. And body is implied in his sense of queerness, which has helped him create his own sound, blossoming luxuriantly not only on record but also in his striking, embodied performances.

As such, in the past Giske has likened his performance to transmuting electronic music through all of his human faults, akin to becoming a machine. And with second album Cracks he introduces a new set of parameters for the automated processes of his muscle memory to work against. His decision to collaborate with producer André Bratten and his extensive studio of electronic machines saw Giske play in the new ‘resonant’ space of Bratten’s reactive studio tuned to his original sounds.

In a sense, you could call it generative music – a term coined by Brian Eno to describe music made within a set of rules that can constantly evolve within that system. But here the only algorithms at work are responding to Giske’s self-imposed constraints (or parameters) – like the afore-mentioned circular breathing. As a practice, it induces in the player – and perhaps the listener, too – a kind of altered state, more open to discovery, and as a cycle of sound it defies time. This atemporality, or out-of-timeliness, hints at theorist José Muñoz’s notion of “queer time”, which is a chronology wholly other than the default.

If this new studio-as-an-instrument process has brought Giske one step closer to the manmachine, it’s also a way to bridge the separation – or crack – between the two. This kind of liminal space, according to Giske, is to be treasured: “The tracks wedge themselves into the cracks of our perceived reality to explore them for their beauty. A celebration of corporeal states and divergent behaviors,” he explains. He cheerfully admits to mining the thought universe of Muñoz – especially his book Cruising Utopia– as inspiration, and the resulting Cracks have a sensual, deeply-felt and lingering beauty with a touch of the superhuman.

Cracks

Music GB

Discover Cracks by Bendik Giske on LP from Smalltown Supersound. Dive into Giske's unique saxophone sound in this raw, intimate album.