This groundbreaking tap dance album is a wild exploration of sound by Janne Eraker and friends, with borderless worlds of music, widening the horizon and moving outside of all boxes. The ambition of the project was to find ways to use tap dance as percussion in a variety of musical styles, genres and collaborations, and to make a state of the art album recording of this.
Eraker went to extremes to try different sounds, textures, material, shoes, dynamics, concepts and, of course, rhythms! Sometimes it’ll be hard to know what’s tap dance and what’s not, because the players get so close in timbre, texture and sound. There’s both composed and improvised music, and music that is based on a standard jazz tune, score, groove or melody. There’s tap dance on wood, metal, bubble wrap, sand, in water, with different types of shoes and with bare feet. Eraker plays on a collection of taps hanging from a rack, like a percussionist playing a carillon, and wooden taps bound together in her hands, like a flamenco dancer playing castanets.
Eraker has a group of stellar musicians with her on this project: Knut Reiersrud, Ivar Grydeland, Michaela Antalová, Harald Fetveit, Anders Kregnes Hansen, Hans Martin Rundberg Austestad, Juliana Venter, David Skinner, Roger Arntzen, Vegar Vårdal and Kristoffer Lislegaard. This resulted in 10 recordings with 9 duets and 1 trio.
All of this is also documented in a series of videos, to make it possible to see how the music was created. Together with the videos, the ten digital singles that make up the album will be released monthly, starting with the first on January 6th 2023. The double vinyl record will be out at the end of all this, in fall 2023.
Daan Botlek is a visual artist from the Netherlands. He created the cover of the double vinyl record and the ten digital singles. These are all unique murals made in his atelier in Rotterdam, as a part of his artistic project called Primitive Practice.
Janne Eraker is a tap dancer based in Norway. She has roots in many places; born in Germany, raised in Norway, educated and started a family in the Netherlands. Also her dancing has many roots, starting with Balkan folk dances, swinging by competition dancing, musicals, contemporary and modern dance, and now fermenting all of it into her tap dancing. Eraker is fascinated by the sound of tap dance, and has worked a long time to create all kinds of music with it. Her work spans from improvised concerts to choreographed dance pieces, collaborating with a wide range of artists. In 2022 she released her first album Gol Variations with the trio One Small Step. As a performer she also dances in the Sebastian Weber Dance Company in Germany.
Much more information, videos and an extensive blog about this project can be found at
janneeraker.com.
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Review by Sven Schlijper-Karssenberg in Vital Weekly:
"We might have been thinking to have had it all here at Vital Weekly: records from sandpaper, wind, embers, deep marine creatures, heartbeats... and now the Deventer-based label Esc.rec. manages to surprise even our weary ears with 'a wild exploration of sound' through, hold your horses: tap dance. We are discussing breaking boundaries, crossing borders and thinking outside the box (all boxes)! And for some genuine contemporary percussion, we always put on our most eager of listening ears, fans as we are of Karen Willems, Robyn Schulkowsky, Joey Barron, Les Percussions de Strasbourg or Chris Corsano and Claire Rousay. And yes, Janne Eraker's approach to tap dance is percussive, using percussion with friends in various styles and genres.
One could put one head in the speaker to try and pinpoint what feet, shoes, and pedal to the metal are... Still, Eraker manages to move beyond the merely 'accepted' or 'accustomed' sound(s) of tap, tap dance or dance, moving her talent and idiosyncratic musical approach into a realm one might call expanded tap or, better: expanded and exploding percussion.
In these ten recordings, we have nine duets and one trio featuring a host of stellar collaborators, both in the fields of composed and improvised music. All these recordings are also videotaped and released as 'singles', with the currently released 2LP serving as the collection and exclamation point. Watching the videos is warmly recommended as the tactile aspect of the performance of both the tap dance and the collaboration really adds to the works' already rich and profoundly engaging nature.
From some kind of drip music to bubble wrap experiment or barefoot tapping... From pretty straightforward jazz guitar stylings to radical explorations of timbre and texture, Eraker and Co manage to blow to pieces the image one might hold of tap dance and jazz or improvised music, for that matter. In doing so, they provide a record of highly engaging musical interest far beyond expectations or conventions. The material would not be out of place at the Holland Festival or Gaudeamus Festival. Music too that stretches the physical and embraces the natural (check the reverb in the recording made at the immersive resonances of Emanuel Vigeland Museum!!) into uncharted territories of bliss and wonder (at times surpassing even the Cuts-series of Merzbow, Pándi & Gustafsson in brutal noise force). True movements for engaged deep listening. It is a record for the top spots of the Year List 2023 for sure."
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Review by Eric Therer in JazzMania:
"Quand on imagine les claquettes, c’est avant tout le son qu’elles produisent qui nous vient à l’esprit. Avant qu’elles ne désignent des sandales tendance, le terme renvoie d’abord à un style de danse qui trouve ses origines lointaines en Irlande. Avec le temps, l’art des claquettes s’est disséminé à maints endroits dans le monde sur toutes sortes de scènes. L’artiste norvégienne Janne Eraker en a fait sa pratique, mais également sa vocation. De longue haleine, son travail ne tient pas seulement dans la figuration des claquettes mais également dans leur représentation sonore, scénique, mais aussi ontologique. Pour ce faire, elle n’hésite pas à ausculter les planchers sur lesquels elle danse, répertoriant les propriétés de leurs bois et leurs qualités sonores pour choisir celui qui conviendra le mieux à ce qu’elle recherche. Édité par le petit label hollandais Esc.rec, connu pour son catalogue curieux, cet album constitue un véritable témoignage de la démarche intime et particulière de Janne Eraker. Décliné en deux vinyles, il reprend une dizaine de compositions initiées avec des musiciens avec lesquels elle est en affinités. Ainsi le pianiste David Arthur Skinner, le guitariste et joueur de fiddle Knut Reiersrud, le percussionniste Anders Kregnes Hansen, le banjoïste Hans Marin Rundberg Austestad… Mais aussi Kristoffer Lislegaard et Harald Fetveit à l’électronique et surtout l’excellent ingénieur du son Audun Strype qui est ici partie prenante du projet. La pluralité des sonorités et des atmosphères explorées, mais aussi la diversité des lieux dans lesquels les enregistrements ont été effectués, confèrent à cette œuvre une valeur inestimable. Plus encore, ce sont les chorégraphies, pulsées ou domptées d’Eraker qui en font son substrat. On se trouve ici à la croisée entre la survivance de musiques traditionnelles (qui auraient pu être éditées par Smithsonian Folkways Recordings), de musiques concrètes et d’avant-garde. « Movements for Listening » porte à merveille son titre. C’est assurément un des disques les plus énigmatiques qui nous ont été donnés à écouter au cours de l’année écoulée."
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Review by Hans Verhoeven in Luminous Dash:
"Wat is dit, zeg. En wie zijn dit, zeg. Beginnen dan maar met Knut Reiersrud, een Noorse bluesgitarist die zijn gouden snaren verdiende bij David Lindley en Rickie Lee Jones en nog wel wat goed volk. Kortom, mensen die je kan binnenlaten nadat het duister zeer zwaar viel.
En dan is er Janne Eraker. Ook Noors maar zo’n beetje van overal. En ze danst zich een weg uit fjorden allerhande. Haar stiel is tapdans, de onze hierover schrijven.
En nu ga je zeggen: “Tapdansen, allemaal goed en wel, maar waarom dit uitbrengen als single en, bij uitbreiding, in november een dubbele lp?”
Wel: het werkt. Natuurlijk wordt dit visueel versterkt zodat wij en jij en jullie allemaal eens kunnen luisteren via de ogen. Eraker gebruikt haar voetjes als instrument, eerst al tappend (niet achter een bar, maar zover waren jullie wel al mee) en dan, tapdansschoenen af, in een zandbak. Wat dan weer het geluid van een jazzdrummer geeft die – voorzichtig, heel teder – zijn trommelvellen streelt met een borsteltje. En Eraker is Misses Bojangles. Maar dan eerder ingetogen. Trap niet op haar tenen.
Nooit gedacht hier ooit iets over te schrijven. En nadien blij dat we dat konden doen. Want: dit werkt."
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Review in Jazznytt:
"For noen år siden ga steppdanser Janne Eraker et lynkurs i sine favoritter innenfor faget her i remsa, i forbindelse med serien steppdanssalonger hun arrangerte. Den kan være nyttig å hente fram nå, for Eraker slapp tidligere i januar den første singelen fra det kommende albumet Movements for Listening. På låta “Chulas Fronteras” hører vi Eraker i samspill med Knut Reiersrud, spilt inn i Kulturkirka Jakob, med Audun Strype på lyd. Det starter elegant, med et lurt og lekent femtaktvamp, før vi deiser inn i den psykedeliske gryta, hvor Reiersrud vrir på knottene, finner fram en fele og Eraker tar av seg skoene (i videoen får vi se at hun har mange forskjellige par som vi sikkert får høre på resten av plata) og fortsetter barbent, på en plate dekket av sand. Når man skriver føles det alltid som å ta på seg en litt rar og fjong hatt å bruke ordet taktilt om musikk, men det er noe her, altså. “Chulas Fronteras” er den første videoen fra Movements for Listening-prosjektet, men slett ikke den siste: Alle ti låtene, hvorav ni er duoinnspillinger og én er en trio, vil bli sluppet på denne måten, med tungvektere innenfor rar musikk som Juliana Venter, Harald Fetveit, Michaela Antalová og Ivar Grydeland. Vi vil få høre hele spekteret av utvidede steppdansteknikker, og opplever nærkontakt med materialer som bobleplast, vann og metall."
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Review of album presentation concert Oslo in Jazz i Norge:
jazzinorge.no/anmeldelse/eraker-eleverer/
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Interview by Bendik Kjørholt in Jazz i Norge:
jazzinorge.no/2023/01/23/ukas-jazzprofil-janne-eraker/
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Interview by NTB Gitte Johannessen, published in Kontekst_, Kulturplot and other Norwegian media:
kontekst.no/bruker-steppdans-som-instrument-pa-musikkalbum-jeg-er-bade-danser-og-musiker/
kulturplot.no/musikkplot/2023/bruker-steppdans-som-instrument-pa-musikkalbum-jeg-er-bade-danser-og-musiker/
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released November 3, 2023
SIDE A
01 Chulas Fronteras
Knut Reiersrud and Janne Eraker
Composed by Knut Reiersrud and Janne Eraker
Recorded by Audun Strype at Kulturkirken Jakob
Mixed by Audun Strype, Janne Eraker and Knut Reiersrud
02 Chair Variations
One Small Step: Roger Arntzen, Vegar Vårdal and Janne Eraker
Recorded by Audun Strype at the Emanuel Vigeland Museum
Mixed by Audun Strype
03 Cute
David Arthur Skinner and Janne Eraker
Composed by Neil Hefti
Recorded by Audun Strype at Nynorskens Hus
Mixed by Audun Strype
04 Two Miniatures for Tap Dance and Drums, Movement 1
Michaela Antalová and Janne Eraker
Recorded and mixed by Jock Loveband at Urban Sound Studios
SIDE B
05 Two Miniatures for Tap Dance and Drums, Movement 2
Michaela Antalová and Janne Eraker
Recorded and mixed by Jock Loveband at Urban Sound Studios
06 If You Find Yourself Falling, Dive
Juliana Venter and Janne Eraker
Recorded by Audun Strype at Naustet
Mixed by Audun Strype
07 Three Miniatures for Tap Dance and Percussion
Anders Kregnes Hansen and Janne Eraker
Composed by Anders Kregnes Hansen
Recorded by Audun Strype at Scenehuset
Mixed by Audun Strype
SIDE C
08 Galgeberg
Hans Martin Rundberg Austestad and Janne Eraker
Composed by Hans Martin Rundberg Austestad
Recorded by Audun Strype at the Executioner’s House.
Mixed by Audun Strype
09 Sikte på 10
Øy: Kristoffer Lislegaard and Janne Eraker
Recorded and mixed at Metronopolis by Kristoffer Lislegaard
SIDE D
10 Naaktgeboren
Harald Fetveit and Janne Eraker
Recorded and mixed by Bjørn Larsen at Blitz
Edited by Audun Strype, Harald Fetveit and Janne Eraker
11 Funkverkehr
Ivar Grydeland and Janne Eraker
Recorded and mixed by Morten Qvenild at Ugla Lyd
Mastered by Audun Strype, Strype Audio
Cover art by Daan Botlek
Supported by Arts and Culture Norway, Norwegian Jazz Forum, Performing Arts Hub Norway
