Christian Munthe profile picture

Christian Munthe

Free improvised music - solo & groups

About Me


Even if you can't see them, there are lots of links in this text... Just click around and find out!
Go HERE to listen to more of my music!
THE FRIEND STUFF: My general policy on this is explained in my first blog entry . Provided your tracks here are available for download, once added or invited, even if I don't do it directly, I will eventually get around to listening to your things. If you have set your tracks to not being downloadable, for some reason, the myspace player refuses to work for me.
I've been involved in free improvised music since the mid 1980's. Before that, I played in various styles stretching from straight rock'nroll, progressive, fusion, jazz etc. etc.. It's always been and still is off and on, since I do this besides my regular job as a philosopher , and my life as a half-time single dad. Very seldom do I mix these parts of my life, but some years ago I wrote a series of essays on the concept of free improvised music - an English version of one of them is HERE .
I do some solo playing (a recent project being the Backside suite, of which there's a sample here) - but I actually prefer to collaborate with others. Some of the people I have collaborated/am collaborating with: Günter Christmann , Anders Dahl , Mats Gustafsson , Thomas Lehn , Paul Lovens , Phil Minton , , Raymond Strid , Roger Turner , Philipp Wachsmann . A few recordings have been released over the years (see covers above and the discography to the left!).
My most longstanding collaboration is Two Slices of Acoustic Car, a duo w. saxplayer Mats Gustafsson . We've been doing it since 1986 - sparsely these days, but we actually met up and did a small bagatelle at the perspectives festival in Västerå - first gig since 1999 - and maybe we'll get around celebrating our 20+ years jubilee in a proper manner before it becomes time for 30, we'll see.
At the moment, my more active collaborations are a number of duos: one with UK percussionist Roger Turner , and one with electronics artist/composer/improviser Anders Dahl . Also, quite recently, I've started collaborations with drummer/electronicsplayer Martin Öhman , vocalist Mariam Wallentin , French altosaxplayer Christine Sehnaoui , and UK percusionist Patrick Farmer .
Releases with all of these can be found through the images above and the discography to the left. A track with Mariam is up on the page of Sound of Music , as is a track with Patrick in my own player above. In both these latter cases, further recordings are planned, with possible future releases as a result.
In more general terms, besides the obvious one in free improvising, my interests at the moment tends to gravitate towards transcending structural boundaries (noice-melody, acoustic-electronic, loud-silent, unpleasant-beautiful...., you get the picture) and create through challenges.
===== Besides my more or less steady collaborations, I am always open for suggestions regarding different kinds of ventures. If you have an idea, don't hesitate to message me! And if you happen to be in the area of Göteborg or the Swedish West Coast, let me know and maybe we can meet/play/record.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 10/30/2006
Band Website: this one + soundclick.com/christianmunthe
Band Members: RELEASES:

UPCOMING:
+solo: the BACKSIDE suite: cd on tyyfus
+duo w. Christine Sehnaoui: Yardangs: cd on Mandorla
+Duo w. Anders Dahl: Several Kinds of Ground: cd on tyyfus
+Various artists: Of Iff (cd compilation, Blue Tower Records )
+GUTTER (Mats Gustafsson, Christian Munthe, Raymond Strid & Roger Turner): Hidden among the Leaves (label pending)

2008
+solo: Blowing the wind, 1st Draft, Compost and Height (netrealse, free download)
+trio w. Joel Grip & Tatsuya Nakatani: So it Goes (Live at Geiger) : Insubordinations netlabel (free download)

2007
+Dahl-Munthe Duo: "Gammadelta", track on Autumn Tunes, vol. 2 net-compilation on Mandorla (free download)
+Christian Munthe & Roger Turner: OCHE (cd, Kning Disk )
+duo w. Martin Öhman: The sum of any number of zeros... (cdr, electronic musik )
+Dahl-Munthe Duo: "track 3" on GEIGER bootleg 4 (netrelease + cdr, GEIGER )
+Solo: "BACKSIDE suite - prelude" on Spring Praises (netrelease, compilation, MANDORLA )

EARLIER:
+ad hoc combinations: CD 2: tracks 2 & 15, CD 3, track 5, SOUNDS 99 (compilation tripple cd & booklet, Blue Tower Records , 1999)
+VARIO 34 (w. Günter Christmann, Alexander Frangenheim, Mats Gustafsson, Thomas Lehn, Paul Lovens, Christian Munthe): * water writes always in * plural (cd, Concepts of Doing , 1999)
+Two Slices of Acoustic Car (Mats Gustafsson & Christian Munthe): Lennart (cd-single, Blue Tower Records , 1997)
+VARIO 34 (w. Günter Christmann, Alexander Frangenheim, Mats Gustafsson, Thomas Lehn, Paul Lovens, Christian Munthe): VARIO 34 (cd, Blue Tower Records & Edition Explico , 1994)
+Solo, duo & trio (Christian Munthe w. Per-Ã…ke Holmlander, Phil Minton, Raymond Strid, Phil Wachsmann): muntmunt (cd, Blue Tower Records , 1993)
+Two Slices of Acoustic Car & FRIM Big Band: Tracks 1, 2 & 17 on Sounds: contemporary Swedish improvised music (vinyl, 2-LP & booklet, Blue Tower Records , 1989)
+The Try Me Ensemble: "Try Me" on BTHHS 50 (vinyl, EP, limited ed., Blue Tower Records , 1988?)

Check out Robotcowboy on myspace!
Influences: First of all:

(Go here to see the details of my visitors' locations!)

And besides all you people: My daughter Saga and our late cat Simba, My father's whimsical rendering of various popular and traditional songs with his own mixed up/altered lyrics during my childhood, my sister Berenike who taught me the rudiments of music theory and demonstrated its irrelevance to artistic creativity, Muddy Waters playing "Manish Boy" on Swedish television sometime in the early 1970's, the Swedish political music movement during the 1970's, the female voice (Björk, Kate Bush, Patsy Cline, Lady Day, Marianne Faithful, Ani DiFranco, PJ Harvey, Jeanne Lee, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom, Anette Peacock, Elis Regina, Linda Ronstadt, Nina Simone, Patti Smith, Dina Washington...), the friends in Varning för Hunden, Pich Band, and Dom Ludna, and all of my other playing partners over the years, the rest of "The Iron Gang" (Harald Hult, Mats Gustafsson, Kjell Nordeson, Edward Jarvis), Sten Sandell, the Evan Parker-Derek Bailey Duo, Günter Christmann, Paul Lovens, Phil Minton, Roger Turner, Phil Wachsmann, that NYC bunch of people in the 1980's that proved improvised pieces could be short and sharp as a smash hit (Zorn, Moss, Marclay....), Sören Runolf, Peter Söderberg, Per-Henrik Wallin, Saichiko M., Ami Yoshida, loads of "folk" music from all over the place - especially Korean traditional and improvised music, loads of jazz/jazzyish stuff (Paul Gonsalves, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Wardell Gray, Jim Hall, Eddie Costa, Monk, Hampton Hawes, Charlie Christian, Bird, Coltrane, Miles, Paul Bley, Braxton, George Lewis (both of them!), Barry Altschul, Jimmy Giuffrie, Serge Challof....), "the great american songbook", loads of fusion/progressive rock from the 1970's-80's, Ol' time american music of all shades, country kept simple and clear, The Who, Black Sabbath, Hendrix, The Kinks, Deep Purple, Cage, J.S.B., Xenakis, Franz Schubert, Scriabin, Ligeti, Pendercki, Ravel...this list could go on and on.
Record Label: multiple, see discography
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

2 NEW RELEASES ON TYYFUS


Posted by Christian Munthe on Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:57:00 PST

So it Goes (Live at Geiger) reviewed @ Fant00m

Read the review here: http://fant00m.fokusrecords.com/2008/01/28/grip-munthe-nakat ani-so-it-goes-live-at-geiger/...
Posted by Christian Munthe on Tue, 27 May 2008 02:28:00 PST

UP AT LAST: New track: live solo in Växsjö

Announced this a month ago, but now it's really up. Turned out I had made a too high quality mp3.
Posted by Christian Munthe on Wed, 16 Apr 2008 08:33:00 PST

Dahl & Munthe + hei @ Fylkingen, May 20

Anders Dahl electronics & Christian Munthe acoustic guitar+hei (Finland)Fylkingen, Stockholm, kl. 19:30 www.myspace.com/christianmunthewww.myspace.com/dahlanderswww .myspace.com/heiei...
Posted by Christian Munthe on Wed, 14 May 2008 02:09:00 PST

Blowing the Wind, 1st draft

The first sample (or "single" one might say) of my new solo project, Blowing the Wind, can now be heard and downloaded via the new netlabel Compost & Height, ran by Patrick Farmer - just click here!...
Posted by Christian Munthe on Mon, 12 May 2008 02:27:00 PST

BLOWING THE WIND

The BACKSIDE Suite being released any month now, I have just started to work on a new solo project, called BLOWING THE WIND. As The BACKSIDE Suite, this projects has me concentrating on an approach to...
Posted by Christian Munthe on Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:52:00 PST

So it Goes: new netrelease on insubordination w. Grip & Nakatani

...
Posted by Christian Munthe on Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:17:00 PST

gig in Oslo, March 29, w. Gutvik & Duch

As part of the Fritt Fall concert series @ Sound of Mu, Oslo (Norway) on March 29:Michael Francis Duch double bassKetil Gutvik electric guitarChristian Munthe acoustic guitar...
Posted by Christian Munthe on Fri, 21 Mar 2008 06:24:00 PST

OCHE reviewed (in Swedish)

OCHE recenserades i Göteborgsposten och fick 4 fyrar av 5:http://www.gp.se/gp/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=541&a=394913
Posted by Christian Munthe on Sun, 20 Jan 2008 08:44:00 PST

Anders Dahl & Christian Munthe CD in 2008

The mixing and selection for the forthcoming debut CD of the duo of Anders Dahl and me, Several kinds of ground is now complete. It will be released by the Finnish Tyyfus label in 2008. Stay tuned for...
Posted by Christian Munthe on Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:27:00 PST