BABEL - New commissioned work by Mark Solborg
A compositional investigation of musical languages and human conversation, handled by a unique gathering of musicians infused with field recorded interviews in multiple languages..
Is the myth of BABEL about God creating communicative discord to control man, or was the intent to nurture fertile diversity? A disruption of a self-perpetuating echo chamber, to stimulate a more varied and complex perspective of the world. Maybe she wanted to show us that we will find strength to solve the problems of the planet in each others differences and multiple talents, not in uniformity and polarisation?
With his multilingual Danish/Argentinian background, travels, work and studies all over the world Solborg has experienced how the words, our idioms and mother tongues are deeply connected with our view of ourselves and the way we resonate with the surrounding world. In BABEL he seeks to investigate, illustrate and raise awareness of ...

BABEL - New commissioned work by Mark Solborg
A compositional investigation of musical languages and human conversation, handled by a unique gathering of musicians infused with field recorded interviews in multiple languages..
Is the myth of BABEL about God creating communicative discord to control man, or was the intent to nurture fertile diversity? A disruption of a self-perpetuating echo chamber, to stimulate a more varied and complex perspective of the world. Maybe she wanted to show us that we will find strength to solve the problems of the planet in each others differences and multiple talents, not in uniformity and polarisation?
With his multilingual Danish/Argentinian background, travels, work and studies all over the world Solborg has experienced how the words, our idioms and mother tongues are deeply connected with our view of ourselves and the way we resonate with the surrounding world. In BABEL he seeks to investigate, illustrate and raise awareness of the continuous cross-cultural inter humane debate. A conversation that becomes increasingly important if we are to solve the challenges of our society and species.
BABEL is based on Solborg’s TUNGEMÅL (meaning idiom or tongue) platform concerned with the guitar as a voice in contemporary chamber musical contexts. With this comprehensive project Solborg wishes to elaborate the intimate listening experience, and develop methods and tools for the creative work at hand. An extensive artistic study and qualifying awareness of the modern guitar in interplay with acoustic instruments, and the musical spaces they inhabit.
In this next adventure solborgs music is handled by a wonderful and starry gathering of some of scandinavias finest musicians. 18 additional interviewed voices, speaking in multiple languages, are integrated into the rich textures of the music, creating a warm and unique garden of fables. Contemporary musical conversations like you’ve never heard it before.
BABEL was released on ILK november 2023 on the artist run label ILK.
The press wrote:
❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎ “ Danish masterguitarplayer reminds us that all hope is not lost .. Here the emotions are not just on the outside, they are blown out through instruments and encloses the listener." - David Dyreborg, Politiken
Best Jazz on Bandcamp, November 2023
" I have been unable to stop listening to BABEL. It has its hooks in me deep.” - Dave Sumner, Bandcamp.

The album Ephemeralds is the first record by Finn Loxbo’s new ensemble KOMMUN and marks a distinct development in the guitarist’s compositional practice. Performing together with pianist Lisa Ullén, kontrabassist Vilhelm Bromander and percussionist Ryan Packard, each musician manipulates a collection of tightly stipulated pitch material that brings the timbral commonalities between each instrument into close proximity. Loxbo has set up a situation of intense focus, dissolving individual identities into a collective sound world of resolute clarity. Uniquely, this dissolution happens without relying on a blur of sustained tones (drone). The music remains ‘hard’. A chiselled, gleaming beauty, but one hung in a precarious assemblage of rhythmic co-dependence that causes it to disappear in the moment of its arrival. The act of listening both invokes and displaces our memories. Everything happens in the moment of nothing really happening and nothing happens in the moment of everything happening....

Read more Hide full description.