Magne Furuholmen - A Dot of Black in the Blue of Your Bliss - CD DIGIPAK

as a member of the hugely popular (and of late critically adorned) norwegian band a-ha, he has toured the world since their first worldwide number one in 1985, selling a staggering amount of records in the process. he has contributed to the band's worldwide hits, as well as much more ecclectic collaborations, writing filmscores, and music for theatre & ballet. as a solo artist the new album titled 'a dot of black in the blue of your bliss' is his second, following the 2004 release of 'past perfect future tense' - an album termed 'uneasy listening' by his wife. 'probably mostly referring to my unapologetic approach to vocals,' he says...tongue somewhere close to cheek. magne f expresses himself across an almost panoramic range of medias. his ballooning body of work in music, paintings, prints, ceramics, sculpture, text and so on has made his signature increasingly difficult to ignore - and his cv a rather exhausting read in itself! his artistic path is not so easily defined, full of unexpected detours and left turns as it may appear. in fact he seems devoted to defy the idea of being categorized, constantly challenging his achievements and branching out into new areas. 'i have been too many people to defend old versions of myself' - a quote from an earlier interview, may serve as an apt introduction to this multi-faceted artist. as a visual artist, magne f is represented in the uk by the prestigious paul stolper gallery, alongside well known english figures like damien hirst, sir peter blake, gavin turk & jeremey deller. he has held numerous solo exhibitions in galleries and museums and participated in group exhibitions across europe since 1989, and his works are represented in both public and private collections. in 1996 magne was given a guest-professorship at the shanghai college of fine arts, and in 2001 his work was featured on a stamp in his native norway as the youngest living artist ever. in 2004 he was chosen to represent norway on a royal state visit to vietnam - both as visual artist, as well as being the first western musician to perform an open air concert in downtown hanoi. among his realised work is a 5m high ceramic sculpture in the town of bergen, and last year saw magne f given the prestigious task of making a large-scale sculture for the nobel peace center in oslo, which was ceremoniously unveiled by peace-prize winners al gore and rajendra pachauri on the 11th of december 2007. the 5-metre high house of cards titled 'climax' was made with recycled aluminium taken from ships, tanker-trucks, commercial airplanes and fighter jets - the rumour that he bought a crashed F16 fighter plane unseen apparently true. the new album 'a dot of black in the blue of your bliss' was recorded in june and september of 2007, in the south of france. in a house originally rented by a-ha to make demos in the 80's which now serves as magnes winter residence, magne invited friends to record the album with the medieval villages of provence as a pittoresque backdrop. the liner-notes reveal the musicians to be mainly norwegian musicians, but guy berryman from coldplay also contributes, as he did on the previous magne f album. 'a bunch of friends went down there like a band of gypsies basically taking over the whole 'a bunch of friends went down there like a band of gypsies basically taking over the whole house, setting up a mobile studio with microphones everywhere, from the basement to the bathrooms - even up the chimney!' the album-title is 'shamelssly stolen' from a line in vladimir nabokov's perhaps lesser known work 'laughter in the dark'. an unapologetic linguist who speaks 6 languages, magne f puts literature at the core of his inspiration: 'i find that most of my creative effort deals with language on some level and the possibilities and impossibilities of communication. not only how context changes meaning, but studying the architectural qualities of the words. as a guest in the english language, i am always aware of the possibilities of communicationbreakdown. on the outskirts of this breakdown, really interesting things begin to happen.' with this album finished, magne f resisted the idea of a traditional release, making instead a 300 vinyl limited edition where all the album-covers were mounted and handpainted as one giant painting during a 'visual concert' in oslo city hall in january 2008. the lucky ones received the vinyl picture disc, the fragment of the painting alongside a poster of the complete work ('...to find their place in the scheme of things'), and a cd including 6 songs and a documentary of the process behind the painting. meanwhile the songs were made available to his fans on myspace free of charge. with this constant flurry of activities, does he ever have time to relax, we asked; 'well,' he said, '...nobody is perfect.'