Thomas Strønen - Pohlitz (2006)

homas Strónen (born 1972) is founder and leader of the Norwegian / British band Food, whose base line-up is now Strónen and British sax player Iain Ballamy and until recently bassist Mats Eilertsen and prolific trumpeter Arve Henriksen. Food have released four albums, their selftitled debut and "Organic and GM Food" on Feral as well as two excellent albums for Rune Grammofon, "Veggie" (2002) and "Last Supper" (2004). A new album is under preparation. "Pohlitz" is Thomas Strónen_s first solo album and the 30th album he appears on. He has since long established himself as much more than the traditional drummer, being a writer and arranger in Food and Parish as well as in other projects. In fact, this is a percussion record completely without drums, with focus on details and melodic elements and with possible references to minimalists like Steve Reich, traditional Gamelan music as well as fellow Norwegian Arne Nordheim_s classic electronic music. With a background from improvised, contemporary and electronic music Strónen works with spontaneous composition, arranging and recording of new music in a special setting. One central method includes writing melodic themes on acoustic percussion instruments such as bells, gongs and prepared piano which are then sampled and processed, making them a new starting point for further playing and programming. In this way a gong can have a bass function and bells can make small melodic lines. But this is not a conventional layer on layer recording process, everything is done in realtime without overdubbing or post editing.