Progarchives.com has always (since 2002) relied on banners ads to cover web hosting fees and all. Please consider supporting us by giving monthly PayPal donations and help keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.
Joined: March 04 2008
Location: Retirement Home
Status: Offline
Points: 3658
Topic: Ur Kaos Posted: September 16 2011 at 09:45
UR Kaos is another musical project by Lars Lach'n Jonsson of Zut Un Feu Rouge and Songs Between Cities. It was formed in 1981 under the name UR. They kept that name until 1986. In 1987, they released their first album, UR Kaos, which was compared to the works of This Heat and Art Bears, with some Zeuhl elements too. It contained texts written by William Blake and also Swedenborg.
Their second album, A Terrible Beauty Is Born, was released in 1990. The music presented in this album was similar to the first one, but with a more brutal approach this time. The lyrics of this album are more obscure, strange. This time, it features texts by Shakespeare and Aiskylos.
Their final album, Av Sprucket Ut Är Valt Ett Inuti, was released in 2000, ten years after their second album.
I got in touch with Lars and here is the Ur Kaos story.
Your biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so
let's bypass the biography details. But your name, does that means "The
origin of chaos" or "..off chaos" ? Your name can have both connotations.
Why did you choose that name ?
It was partly because of this double
connotations, a doubleness which we liked. And the group had some of its
ground in "chaotic" parts of improvised music, as we also tried to construct
and compose material out of this free, improvised recorded
sounds.
How was the music scene in your local area when you
started ?
It was quite small and local. In the town Linköping. There
was a place for rock and punkmusic, where we once or twice performed. There
was also an organisation for jazzmusic, an amateur orchestra for classical
music, and quite many choirs. But Ur Kaos and Bauta Records wasn't really a
part of the local scenes. We were mostly on our own, and the music work
was made in The Forest Studio in the country side. Though there had been,
earlier, groups working with more experimental music in Linköping. And also
interesting international guest-concerts which inspired us when we were
young. (Henry Cow for example played there 1978)
Over to your
three albums. Your debut album was UR Kaos from 1987. Please tell us more
about this album.
Before this we had done a couple of live
performances, with both composed and improvised music. Also with one or two
other musicians. The group name was then just UR. In 1986 I built my
recording studio (The Forest). This made it possible to work on another
level. And we started to do free improvised sessions in the studio. Recording
live as a trio. We found this to be a great source of inspiration and raw
material, to go on with. We started to arrange it and add melodies and lines,
write lyrics and add vocals. And suddenly we had a lot of songs. It was all a
very unpredictable and spontaneous process. This first album was all made
within 5 - 6 months.
Your second album was A Terrible Beauty
Is Born from 1990. Please tell us more about this album.
This album
took off right after the first one. We continued in the same kind of process
with recorded improvisations. But as we now had a first and successful first
example to compare with. It became much more difficult. We started to have
discussions and demands, and realised that we also some times had different
ideas an values around the music. To get through this difficulties and to
find new creativeness, we started to collaborate with guitarist Magnus
Hayashi Alexandersson. (I had worked with him earlier in the group Fontana
Mix, both in Linköping and Stockholm - more info on that at My Space.com and
Fontana Mix) This gave new sounds to the group. We also tried new
combinations of instruments. There were sometimes two, even three electric
guitars, and the Hohner Clavinet (which always has been important for us)
also became more distorted and "guitar-like". The music got a more
"punk-like" or simpler character, with straighter rhythms. At the same time
it grew more personal and strange (I think). We gathered lots of raw
improvised material. And then there was a long period of arranging and
mixing... Not quite as easy and spontaneous as with the first
Lp.
Your third album was Av Sprucket Ut Är Valt
Ett Inuti from 1999. Please tell us more about this album.
This
record is made in the same kind of working process as the earlier ones, and
with the same instruments and techniques. Here it is only the trio again - no
guest musicians. But the biggest change was that we now did not work as
regularly as before. There could be long intervals between our meetings in
the studio. This was sometimes fruitful and a way to keep the inspiration,
but it also made the communication more complicated. An important change was
also our decision to use and write lyrics in Swedish. This made the sound
different and more unusual I think. It also led us to a softer and more
lyrical quality in the music. I think the last album is the most personal and
unique. But it took very long time to finish. A lot of work with mixing and
many alternatives were tried. We worked on this record for nearly 10
years...
What is the availability of these three albums
? Where can they be purchased from ?
They are available
from a few small distributors which you can find on or website: Record
Heaven. Wayside Music. Re-Records Megacorp
and Mellotronen.
For those of us unknown with your
music; how would you describe you music and which bands would you compare
yourself with ?
I suppose we have had several, and different
influences within the group. But it is most audible on the first Lp, and
through the years we went more and more on our own path. Magma has been one
inspiration (but maybe not so audible always). The process of improvisation
and the "punk" attitude brought us sometimes close to This Heat. Important
for my part of the work has also been Henry Cow and Art Bears. Sometimes
we used to call our music "Art-punk". Important is also the lyrical and
philosophical part. Apart from our own writing, we used texts by William
Blake, Swedenborg, Aiskylos, Shakespeare, Jakob Böhme, and others. The
messages in those texts were for us closely linked to the
music.
It seems like your band is in hiatus at the moment. Is
there any plans to do anything more under that name or is this the end of Ur
Kaos ?
I don't think so.
You are also running a record
label called Bauta Records. Please tell us more about this record label
and which bands and albums we can find on your label.
Most
of the the music and musicians on Bauta, is related to me personally, and
also the local area around Linköping. What we have released is often music
which is between the ordinary categories and genres. Experiments which mixes
rock, improvisation, folkmusic and contemporary music. On the sub labels
it is a bit different with more traditional forms. The bands or projects that
I have worked with and released, are except from UR KAOS; Zut un feu rouge,
and Songs Between Cities and Waterholes (with Chris Cutler and Sten
Sandell) Förträngt Hushållsarbete is another strange and interesting group
from Göteborg on our label.
To wrap up this interview, is
there anything you want to add to this interview ?
Bauta
Records is not so busy now. We have mostly done re-releases in the last
years, But I hope we will continue with new music in the future. But I guess
it is also a matter of developing new platforms to present and sell
music.
Thank you to Lars for this interview
Their PA profile is here and their homepage is here
Joined: March 12 2005
Location: Neurotica
Status: Offline
Points: 166183
Posted: September 16 2011 at 20:26
Dig me...But don't...Bury me I'm running still, I shall until, one day, I hope that I'll arrive Warning: Listening to jazz excessively can cause a laxative effect.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
This page was generated in 0.176 seconds.
Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.