Joel Grip
© Lisa Grip
Joel Grip makes music with transforming character. His main instrument is the double bass, but every now and then he plays the cello. All is considered as useful input signals in the, most often instant, making of his music. Let’s call it improvisation. It is, for him, about precision and timing; when you do what, and about questioning and making use of knowledge (ideas, habits, traditions, experience, deliberation and intuition).
When performing, Joel Grip plays with the idea of positioning himself on a musical swing in-between balance and no balance at all. To do so, individual and collective listening and trust are implicit. He is experimenting with forms in which collision, confusion and reiteration are given room. How to surrender and resist simultaneously in the pluck of a tone? His music is also celebratory, not excluding humor.
In order to make music in a transformative way, it benefits from the regular confrontation of an audience. Joel Grip has always been active in initiating collective efforts of organising social and functional environments for music-makers as well as listeners. This has enabled a reverberant learning process in which musical ideas are continuously developed, executed, and rehearsed in an inclusive, direct and communal atmosphere. The particularities of most groups Joel Grip is involved in have been developed (and is being developed) in this way.
After studies in Sweden and Baltimore, USA (with Michael Formanek), Joel Grip relocated to Paris where he in 2007 opened up for Umlaut Records (established in Stockholm 2004) to become an artist run label and festival organiser. Ever since the collective work spread to Berlin in 2009, Umlaut Records have had important impact on the pan-european scenes of creative musics. Joel Grip is/was the cofounder and main producer of festival Hagenfesten in Dala-Floda (since 2003), NGO Public Health Music (2005-2008), and film production company Umlicht (since 2014). Since 2019 he is collectively organising weekly series of music, as well as productions like Marsmusik, under the name of Au Topsi Pohl in Berlin. Apart from his musical activities, Joel Grip makes films and drawings/paintings.
Active in groups Herr Borelgrip, اسم [ism], أحمد [ahmed], Klub Demboh, Tribute to Sheep, duos with Tristan Honsinger, Seymour Wright and Takako Suzuki, Blythill, trio with Sven-Åke Johansson and Bertrand Denzler (Neuköllner Modelle), and Peeping Tom.
Website : joelgrip.com
- Oùat - The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint
- Oùat - Elastic Bricks
- Ahmed - Super Majnoon
- Ahmed - Farah ‘Alaiyna (Joy Upon Us)
- [Ism] - Japanese Flower (release June/July 2021)
- Neuköllner Modelle - Sektion 2
- Neuköllner Modelle - Live at Kaleidophon, Ulrichsberg (AT), 2019
- Ism - Metaphor
- Ism - A l'improviste
- Ism - Tokyo, 2018
- Neuköllner Modelle, 2017
- Ahmed - New Jazz Imagination - Café Oto, 2017
- Peeping Tom - Four girls
- Peeping Tom - Boperation - Up Jumped the Devil
- Herr Borelgrip - River Jazz
- Herr Borelgrip - Nachtzug Jazz Paris-Berlin
Albums
- Wolfwalk (CD)
- Hit Fran Underjordens Burar (CD)
- Bondfasoner (CD)
- The Jolly-Boat Pirates (CD)
- The Violencestring (CD)
- End of Tour (CD)
- File Under : Bebop (CD)
- Kege Snö (CD)
- Boperation (CD)
- Mistluren (CD)
- Pickelhaube (LP)
- Composition No.6 (CD)
- Nelson's Jacket (4 LPs)
- The Braxtornette Project (CD)
- Ça va ? (CD)
- Ça Va Pas du Tout! (LP)
- Papaver (CD)
- Nature in its Inscrutability Strikes Back (CD)
- Four Girls (CD)
- Sektion 1-2 (LP)
- Sektion 3-7 (CD)
- New Jazz Imagination (LP)
- Zyklus 1 (CD)
- Metaphor (CD)
- The Great European Stool Sample (LP)
- Japanese Flower (LP)
- Elastic Bricks (LP)
- The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint (double LP)
Scores
Presse
- 05/02/2024
Nowhere Street, Oùat - 15/11/2023
Cadence, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint
Concerto, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint- 10/02/2023
Radio Beograd, The Strange Aventures of Jesper Klint - 01/02/2023
Nowhere Street, Oùat - 25/01/2023
Jazz Halo, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint - 22/01/2023
Culture Jazz, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint - 05/01/2023
Downbeat, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint - 06/12/2022
The Quietus, Oùat - 01/12/2022
One Man's Jazz, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint - 24/11/2022
Pointbreak, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint - 13/07/2022
The Wire, Ahmed - 01/06/2022
Orkesterjournalen, The Strange Adventures of Jesper Klint - 15/04/2022
The Free Jazz Collective, Elastic Bricks - 02/03/2022
All About Jazz, Elastic Bricks - 01/03/2022
Point of Departure, Elastic Bricks - 01/03/2022
The Wire Magazine, Elastic Bricks - 01/01/2022
Concerto Edition, Elastic Bricks - 11/01/2022
PointBreak, Elastic Bricks - 07/01/2022
Zarbalib, Elastic Bricks - 05/01/2022
A Closer Listen, Elastic Bricks - 23/09/2021
All About Jazz, Japanese Flower
Point of Departure, Japanese Flower- 29/06/2021
PointBreak, Japanese Flower - 12/11/2017
Radio France, ISM - 01/07/2019
Allaboutjazz, Metaphor - 31/01/2020
Culture Jazz, Metaphor - 19/03/2019
All About Jazz, Zyklus 1 - 01/04/2017
All About Jazz, Sektion 3-7 - 18/09/2020
Roger Bergner, The Great European Stool Sample
Agenda - Joel Grip
Ahmed
Bimhuis, Amsterdam (NL)
Ahmed
Lillehammer (NO)