Sven Wunder Jazz | Fusion 12 Items

HHV, Piano Piano and Sven Wunder team up to bring you this white vinyl edition of three albums only available at HHV. The color was picked by the artist. Each album is limited to 300 copies and numbered.

HHV, Piano Piano and Sven Wunder team up to bring you this white vinyl edition of three albums only available at HHV. The color was picked by the artist. Each album is limited to 300 copies and numbered.

HHV, Piano Piano and Sven Wunder team up to bring you this white vinyl edition of three albums only available at HHV. The color was picked by the artist. Each album is limited to 300 copies and numbered.

The highly anticipated follow-up to Eastern Flowers and Wabi Sabi US pressing The staff used on Natura Morta is the following: 9 violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 1 flute, 1 piano, 1 electric piano, 1 cembalo, 1 twelve-string guitar, 1 electric guitar, 1 trumpet, 1 flugelhorn, 1 tenor horn, 1 marimba, 1 electric bass, drums and percussions / On Natura Morta, Sven Wunder is exploring art as a bridge between nature and the human ability to judge and observe in eleven musical compositions with brightly colored textures and an emphasis on vibrant melodies.

Throughout human history, we have depicted the world we live in through art. By reworking what we see in the world, the simplest things have helped us understand the beauty of nature and to evaluate the material world that we have created around us, as a window to a constantly changing reality, through our own perception. It is that absolute reality that appears in the seam of human and nature and that can be revealed through art.

Still life painting, also referred to as Natura Morta (”dead nature”) in Italian, stretches back to ancient times. Some of the earliest works, found in Pompeii, depict commonplace objects such as fresh autumn fruits alongside man-made objects such as a small amphora and a small terracotta heap with dried fruits. These two-thousand-year-old paintings give a snapshot of Roman life, and also creates a link to time and space. A slice of life has been created by binding the earth’s pigments with extracts of oil, made from nuts and seeds, painted with brushes, made from a variety of fibers, such as trees and hair from animals. While life wanes with each brushstroke, by shifting reality into the past, art exists to make us come alive, being a living image of a dead thing, a surface and a symbol with symbolic powers of its own. Still life works celebrate material and ephemeral pleasures by returning to nature as the ultimate source for our standards in art as well as in life itself.

Natura Morta collects pieces from a continuous variety of melodies — supported by a decisive rhythm section — creating a musical kaleidoscope of ever-changing colors. Sven Wunder brings life into this rich assortment of musical implications by fusing and combining melodic instruments with each other in a setting that spans from a classical to a modern idiom. The author evokes this panoramic portrait by articulating an instrumental dialog between a chamber orchestra and a jazz ensemble. The result is a musical celebration of material pleasures that also serves as a reminder of the brevity of human life. This album was produced with financial support from the Swedish Arts Council.

Mr Bongo presents a new and exciting collaborative project with Swedish label Piano Piano Records. Hearing the Swedish outfit Sven Wunder for the first time is as refreshing as an ice-cold Limoncello after an Italian meal. One of those bands that feel instantly familiar like an old friend, yet simultaneously fresh and new. Straight away we fell in love with their sound and knew we had to work with them. The Sven Wunder 'Wabi Sabi' 7" is the second collaborative release between Mr Bongo and Piano Piano Records. 'Wabi Sabi' is Sven Wunder’s follow up to the already contemporary cult-classic album 'Doğu Çiçekleri (Eastern Flowers) from 2019. Not one to be complacent and recreate a carbon copy of their previous works, Sven Wunder switched from the psychedelic-Turkish-funk sounds of 'Doğu Çiçekleri' to the Japanese inspired ethereal funk of 'Wabi Sabi'. We have selected the tracks ‘Hanami’ and ‘Shinrinyoko’ for this collector’s edition 7’. Japanese artists such as Hozan Yamamoto, Tadao Sawai, Kazue Sawai, spring to mind, but also David Axelrod and Dorothy Ashby on the beautiful string-led 'Hanami' with it's laid-back funk breaks. 'Shinrinyoku' has a slightly more raw cinematic-funk sound, yet is cushioned with warm strings and tripped-out keys - pure, rare-library music vibes. We are delighted to be able to release these amazing tracks, cut at the Timmion Records Cutting Lab in Finland.

US issue of 2019’s "Doğu Çiçekleri”

This is the first stop on Sven Wunders musical journey. Wunder takes the listener somewhere around the easternmost part of the Mediterranean Sea, around the Levantine Sea, where he paints a colourful portrait and illustrates the regions flora through sound. The fruitage is a vivid bouquet where Wunder fuses colours and pigments by using traditional and modern instruments merged with arrangements and melodies that stretches from popular to folk music by portraying tulips, red roses, hibiscus, hyacinths, chamomile, magnolia, daisies etcetera. With both fine and thick brushes are these flowers being pictured in a both modern and classic idiom. The outcome is prismatic. It stands between Anatolian rock and European jazz-funk with ponderous drum patterns, groovy organs, far-out synthesizers, enchanting Saz and impetuous bass lines. Eastern Flowers sweeps through time and space and points towards the future. It could appeal both psych and prog listeners, folk or jazz aficionados and as well the gourmet hip hop connoisseurs.

Eastern Flowers is the US issue of 2019’s Docu Çiçekleri. This record is produced with financial support from the Swedish Arts Council.

Swedish repress from 2020.

In collaboration with Piano Piano Records, Mr Bongo is thrilled to present a taster 7” single, ‘Impasto’ / 'Prussian Blue’. The single showcases the colourful palette of Sven Wunder's fabulous forthcoming third album 'Natura Morta’. The album is set to be released on Piano Piano Records later in 2021 with this 7” acting as the perfect prelude. Sven's 2019 album 'Eastern Flowers' took us into the world of Anatolian rock, European jazz, library, funk, psychedelia, and traditional folk melodies. The 2020 follow up, 'Wabi Sabi’, mixed jazz and Eastern and Southern Asian sounds to present an aural aesthetic of the Japanese ancient wisdom. 'Natura Morta’, "still life" in Italian, owes its inspiration to art. Sven Wunder explores it as a bridge between nature and the human ability to judge and observe through eleven unique musical compositions, each one brightly coloured and textured with an emphasis on vibrant melodies. As with previous Sven Wunder material the tracks here on this 7" are covered in lush orchestration, evoking the rich musical soundscapes of a previous era (think library music or the film scores of Morricone). First up is the beautiful ‘Impasto’ which refers to the technique used in painting where the paint is laid in very thick layers on a surface. With its lavish sweeping strings and melodies there are echoes of the arrangements of Arthur Verocai, but it then takes a turn into 60s detective movie territory. You can imagine it being the score to a scene in a Harry Palmer film which breaks for a romantic interlude in between the action and suspense. 'Prussian Blue’, is built on Sven’s ‘Shinrinyoku' from the 'Wabi Sabi’ album, sharing the same melody but here with an uptempo beat and another arrangement. It begins with a moment of calm with its soothing piano intro before it bursts into a percussive breakbeat workout. It skates and glides with the influences of Italian library music and Eastern melodies, yet at the same time it retains a unique element that can only be Sven Wunder. 'Prussian Blue' refers to the pigment that was imported to Japan. Once again, we are indebted to Sven Wunder and John Henriksson at Piano Piano Records for letting us share this melodious vision from one of our favourite contemporary musicians. The compositions on this 7" were produced with financial support from the Swedish Arts Council.

Mr Bongo is delighted to present a new and exciting collaborative project with Swedish label Piano Piano Records. Hearing the Swedish outfit Sven Wunder for the first time is as refreshing as an ice-cold Limoncello after an Italian meal. One of those bands that feel instantly familiar like an old friend, yet simultaneously fresh and new. Straight away we fell in love with their sound and knew we had to work with them. The first fruits of our partnership is a collector's edition 7”.

We have selected two tracks of Turkish inspired funk goodness taken from their already cult-classic 2019 album, 'Do?u Çiçekleri (Eastern Flowers )'. Both instrumentals, 'Tulip' and 'Magnolia' could easily have come from a lost soundtrack to a psychedelic movie. With their beautiful, yet raw aesthetic, they will enthrall funk, B-Boy / Girls, and psychedelia fans alike.

Cut at the Timmion Records Cutting Lab in Finland.

Mr Bongo presents a new and exciting collaborative project with Swedish label Piano Piano Records. Hearing the Swedish outfit Sven Wunder for the first time is as refreshing as an ice-cold Limoncello after an Italian meal. One of those bands that feel instantly familiar like an old friend, yet simultaneously fresh and new. Straight away we fell in love with their sound and knew we had to work with them. The Sven Wunder 'Wabi Sabi' 7" is the second collaborative release between Mr Bongo and Piano Piano Records. 'Wabi Sabi' is Sven Wunder’s follow up to the already contemporary cult-classic album 'Doğu Çiçekleri (Eastern Flowers) from 2019. Not one to be complacent and recreate a carbon copy of their previous works, Sven Wunder switched from the psychedelic-Turkish-funk sounds of 'Doğu Çiçekleri' to the Japanese inspired ethereal funk of 'Wabi Sabi'. We have selected the tracks ‘Hanami’ and ‘Shinrinyoko’ for this collector’s edition 7’. Japanese artists such as Hozan Yamamoto, Tadao Sawai, Kazue Sawai, spring to mind, but also David Axelrod and Dorothy Ashby on the beautiful string-led 'Hanami' with it's laid-back funk breaks. 'Shinrinyoku' has a slightly more raw cinematic-funk sound, yet is cushioned with warm strings and tripped-out keys - pure, rare-library music vibes. We are delighted to be able to release these amazing tracks, cut at the Timmion Records Cutting Lab in Finland.

By welcoming the beauty of imperfection and simplicity, Sven Wunder applies the timeless wisdom of wabi sabi on this musical journey. What you can hear is filtered through Ukiyo-e (which translates as “pictures of the floating world”), which illustrates everyday life, as well as through Japonism, the study of Japanese art, and more specifically its influence on European works. The result is a surface that creates an illusion by sound. The infusion of Min’y? with jazz rock, this hazy scene evokes the landscape of Monet’s ”The Water Lily Pond”, which depicts the painter’s Giverny garden, with a Japanese bridge, bamboo, ginkgo trees and the reflection of the sky in the pond. This illusion constructs both time and space.

The surface of the music, like the canvas of the painting, invents a journey between now and then by interpreting the idiom of folkloric and western art instruments. In this composition, the sound of the Western concert flute, which stretches back to the Renaissance and Baroque periods, evokes the sound of the bamboo-flute (”shakuchachi”), which reached its peak during the Edo period. The guzheng, also known as the Chinese zither, with a more than 2,500 year history, joins traditional Japanese folk melodies with modern pop percussion and 20th century electronic instruments such as the Moog synthesizer, Wurlitzer electric piano and electric bass.

This is the illusion that celebrates the fleeting nature of all things. A journey. A deep inhale and a slow exhale. It has a mix of jazz (both funky and progressive), East Asian and South Asian sounds. The idea of fusing these styles and reframing them with the aesthetic of wabi sabi is to reconnect with nature and concentrate on asymmetries and emphasize ornamentation to generate new ways of looking at the world, here and now.

This record is produced with financial support from the Swedish Arts Council.