stillefelt - stillefelt (2020)

Innovative bassist and electronic improviser Chris Mapp is to release the debut recording from his new ambient trio stillefelt, alongside appearances at the 2020 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, and the launch of the Birmingham edition of the renowned Norwegian Punkt Festival.

“… there’s languid ambient experimentation from new Birmingham-based trio stillefelt – bassist/electronics Chris Mapp, trumpeter Percy Pursglove and guitarist Thomas ‘Seminar’ Ford” – Jazzwise

Following the success of Mapp’s 2017 double release on Stoney Lane Records with his band Gonimoblast, featuring Maja SK Ratkje and Arve Henriksen – garnering acclaim from The Guardian, The Wire, BBC and UK jazz press – the stillefelt debut is a dynamically quieter response to Gonimoblast, featuring Mapp on bass and electronics, trumpter Percy Pursglove and guitarist Thomas Seminar Ford

stillefelt – ‘quiet field’ in Norwegian – hints at its inspiration, with undulating electronic soundscapes blurring the lines between each instrument’s voice, but still with their acoustic qualities at its heart, uniting three of Birmingham’s most distinct instrumentalists for the first time.

Recorded live in spring 2018, the album uses material composed by Chris as starting points, destinations and waymarks to create free flowing improvised narratives, with liberal guitar effects pedals and audio processing creating sound beds for soaring trumpet and guitar lines over hypnotic grooves.

Having already played the Manchester Jazz Festival and Birmingham Symphony Hall over the last year, stillefelt ended 2019 with a residency at the wonderful Birmingham venue Artefact, with 2020 bringing appearances at the inaugural edition of the Punkt festival in Birmingham, the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, and various UK dates through the year.
Featuring original artwork from artist Tom Tebby, and limited to just 500 copies, stillefelt will be released on Stoney Lane Records on 3rd April 2020.

“stillefelt began life as a response to Gonimoblast. Before it had a proper name, I labelled the project the ‘quiet band’ as a way of perhaps demarcating it from Gonimoblast performances, which can often be quite the opposite. In order to facilitate our early meetings, I wrote some short cell-like ideas for the trio to try and give us a shared resource to improvise with (or without). It was never my intention that the pieces should be played in the same way each time, or even that they be played at all. But, by having the same thing in front of us we might be able to develop a coherent vision for what the trio could be.

“Quiet Field represents our first attempt at trying to do that. The pieces remain part of how we play together, some of what we bring with us to each new improvisation. During performances they are stretched to the point where it is not clear where the written material begins or ends, or indeed if something else is being created.” – Chris Mapp