KATZEN KAPELL: Si Tu Veux

Katzen Kapell

Si Tu Veux

© 2007 Ragadang Records (7320470085622)

CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.

A colorful world of an old vaudeville show, the craziness of tango and the incompatible mix of rock and jazz.

notes

Katzen Kapell played in the San Francisco area in october 2007.This article was published in San Francisco Chronicle.

Katzen Kapell Squeeze box is front and center in diverse Swedish band
whose experimental sound is inspired by Piazzolla, Zappa and Stravinsky

Derk Richardson
Thursday, October 11, 2007

Catharina Backman has a great excuse for playing the accordion. "They
forced me to," says the founder and leader of the eclectic Swedish band
Katzen Kapell. "I played the piano but was touring with a small circus,
and they said, 'You won't have this job unless you learn the accordion.' "

In 1986, after a couple of seasons with Varieté Vauduvill, Backman got
together in Stockholm with a few former fellow music students and formed
Katzen Kapell. (The name was inspired by the Katzenjammer Kids comics but
also derives from the Swedish words for cat and ensemble.)

By then, Backman had changed her tune about the squeeze box. "I didn't
even like the instrument," she said in a recent midnight telephone
conversation from Sweden, "until I heard the bandoneon player from
Argentina, Astor Piazzolla." Upon listening to the master of tango nuevo
in 1984, Backman recalled, "I just thought, 'I'm in heaven.' The music was
so beautiful, so tender, so aggressive, so humoristic, so rhythmic. It
really appealed to me. I couldn't copy it, but I'm really inspired by it."

In Katzen Kapell, Backman's passion for Piazzolla plays against
keyboardist-composer Magnus Andersson Lagerqvist's fascination with Frank
Zappa and Igor Stravinsky. Add a classical violinist (Eva Lindal),
acoustic double bassist (Gustaf Hielm), rock-influenced drummer (Erik
Hammarström), and jazz-inspired vibraphonist and percussionist (Kjell
Nordeson) and you have a band that Backman says appeals to "mixed
audiences, from teenagers to very old people."

In an e-mail exchange, vibist Nordeson, who divides his time between
Stockholm and San Francisco, noted that Katzen Kapell plays "all kinds of
venues - jazz clubs, art venues, contemporary music series, concert halls,
rock clubs. I have the impression that audiences can easily relate to our
music in many ways." Nordeson joined the group in 1991. He has his own
ambivalence about the instrument he plays. "I have some kind of love-hate
relationship with the vibraphone," he said. "I love its potential for
creating melody and harmony, but am often frustrated by its unchangeable
pitch. That feeds a need to override the instrument and avoid its
idiomatic cliches."

Katzen Kapell has proved a perfect vehicle for such experimentation. "The
band manages to stay away from too academic an approach, and nourishes a
closeness to an alternative prog-punk tradition," Nordeson said, "despite
the fact that Catharina has gone through seven years of university studies
in classical composition."

With three CDs to its credit, including the new "Si Tu Veux," Katzen
Kapell is only now making its U.S. debut - four shows in the Bay Area
pivoting around an invitation from Other Words, the fifth annual San
Francisco International Poetry Festival. At the Swedish American Hall
Sunday - and Wednesday at Stanford University's Wallenberg Hall - the band
will accompany actress Sara Lindh reciting lyrics by Swedish poet Bodil
Malmsten.

Katzen Kapell's compositions and improvisations now draw on dance hybrids
from North Africa, the Middle East and the Asian subcontinent, as well as
European folk music and modern film scores. The sound should play well in
San Francisco, birthplace of groups like Tin Hat and Tango No. 9, because,
as Backman said, "the music fits in everywhere and nowhere."

- Derk Richardson, 96Hours@sfchronicle.com

This article appeared on page G - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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  • Katzen Kapell - Si tu veux
    author: FRANCISCO JAVIER GASTON

    Parecía que no iban a publicar más trabajos los suecos Katzen Kapell pero la espera ha merecido la pena. Una nueva joya de fusión de estilos. Para mi gusto, de lo mejor de 2007

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