Jens L. Thomsen

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Jens Ladekarl Thomsen (* 1980 ) is a Faroese composer , musician and music producer .

life and work

Early years

The son of a dairy farmer grew up in the small town of Innan Glyvur on the second largest Faroese island of Eysturoy . At a young age he found access to the Gøta music scene around Eivør , Jón Tyril , Petur Pólson and Høgni Lisberg . These and other musicians founded the band Clickhaze in 1998 , in which Jens L. Thomsen played the bass . Although Clickhaze only released one EP , it is one of the most influential formations in Faroese pop history. In 2001 Clickhaze won the Prix ​​Føroyar national pop and rock competition, then the band was invited to the Roskilde Festival in Denmark . After Clickhaze broke up in 2003, Thomsen recorded the first CD of his bandmate Høgni Lisberg ( Most Beautiful Things ) in an empty cinema in Strendur . The recording sparked his interest in working as a music producer.

Jens L. Thomsen moved to London and began studying music technology at Thames Valley University , graduating with a bachelor's degree in 2006. From 2006 to 2008 he worked as a sound engineer at the Kensaltown Recording Studios in London.

ORKA

Parallel to this activity, Jens L. Thomsen started the music and concert project ORKA, which is formed in constantly changing line-ups. The well-known French multi-instrumentalist Yann Tiersen was part of the ensemble at times . On the first CD Livandi Oyða (2007), only self-made instruments were used that Thomsen had formed from objects found accidentally on his father's farm, including a fence post converted into a double bass , fishing lines, wooden barrels, several whetstones and a broom. Also milking machines , a bottle organ , a cassette recorder , a concrete mixer and a drill were used. While the first albums were reminiscent of industrial experiments in the style of the early Einstürzende Neubauten , electronic sounds gradually came to the fore in the course of the project's history , with the sounds generated on the objects mentioned still finding their way into music in the form of samples . Some of the earliest texts are based on poems by Jóanes Nielsen .

From the beginning, ORKA was concerned with capturing the sounds of the places where the albums were made. On the second CD Oro (2011), which Jens L. Thomsen in a Salzsilo the Faroese capital Tórshavn recorded that about replacing microphones clearly audible crunch of salt grains using percussion instruments . Some ORKA releases are by atmospheric downbeat in -Klangflächen, such as the album Leipzig from 2014, which in the former movie theater UT Connewitz , in a small church in the Netherlands , on a boat in Hong Kong and in a train station in Bombay was recorded . The gloomy sound of this CD, characterized by synthesizer textures, meets a chilly sounding vocals, which have been labeled as "North Atlantic vocals". Jens L. Thomsen and his partner The Oktopus (from the US hip-hop band Daelek ) gave other albums a raw, danceable upbeat character using soundscapes found in nature . Thomsen himself sorted his works Vað (2016) and Juno (2018) into the newly invented genre “twisted Neandertal techno”. Jens occasionally works on his tracks in his father's former stable, which he has converted into a studio; the albums appear on the Faroese Tutl label.

Other Projects

In addition to his work for the ORKA project, Jens L. Thomsen has developed soundtracks for theater performances and short films - among others for the filmmaker duo Rannvá Káradóttir & Marianna Mørkøre and for the director and musician Heiðrikur á Heygum. Compositions were also created for the Faroese fashion designer Barbara í Gongini's catwalk shows. For the Nordic Matters Festival in London's Royal Festival Hall , he was commissioned to map the sound of the north in 2017. Employees in Denmark, Norway , Sweden , Finland , Iceland , Greenland , the Faroe Islands and Åland contributed sounds from the thematic areas of water (sea, rivers, geysers, rain), air, fire (volcano) and ice (Arctic), which Jens filtered and structured. The result of his work could be heard over 70 loudspeakers on all floors of the festival hall.

In 2020 Jens L. Thomsen created a sound installation for the Eysturoyartunnilin , which was completed in that year , which can be called up as soon as a vehicle drives into the tunnel. For this purpose, he also recorded the drilling noises during the construction phase of the tunnel and edited them. According to the artist, he wanted to give the tunnel its own voice.

In various functions (composer, musician, producer, sound engineer), Jens L. Thomsen was involved in over 100 CD releases up to 2020. In addition to numerous Faroese colleagues, he also cooperated with Yann Tiersen, Martha Wainwright and Travis .

Awards (selection)

Discography (selection)

Clickhaze

  • EP (2002)

ORKA

  • Livandi oyða (2007)
  • Óró (2011)
  • Live at Trans Musicales (2012, with Eivør and Yann Tiersen , among others )
  • Leipzig (2014)
  • Vað (2016)
  • <13 (2017)
  • Juno (2018)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Artists from NORÐ at Nordic Matters Festival in London , Dansk Kulturinstitut, April 28, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c With music against the forces of nature and darkness , SWR, July 1, 2016.
  3. ↑ mod the svenske bonderøv , Dansk Radio (called on December 26, 2020).
  4. ↑ a b Jens L.Thomsen ger ljóðmynd til Royal Festival Hall , listaportal.com, January 21, 2017.
  5. ↑ ORKA-Oro , ondarock.it, October 8, 2011.
  6. ↑ ORKA Livandi Oyða , Ox, No. 83, April / May 2009.
  7. ↑ ORKA-Leipzig-CD , tanteguerilla.com (accessed on December 26, 2020).
  8. ↑ ORKA with new album and Nordic Council Music Prize nomination , TUTL, June 17, 2016.
  9. ↑ Premiere: ORKA - Ivanov , The Monitor, June 30, 2017.
  10. ↑ Jens L. Thomsen , Felagið Føroysk Tónaskøld (accessed December 26, 2020).
  11. ↑ NORÐ. Royal Festival Hall , Jens L. Thomsen (website, accessed December 26, 2020).
  12. ↑ Faroe Islands: The new deep sea tunnel as an art gallery! , LinkedIn, December 9, 2020.
  13. ↑ Jens L. Thomsen: Eg ynski at geva tunlinum eina rødd , Dimmalætting, December 18, 2020.
  14. ↑ Recordings , Jens L. Thomsen (website, accessed December 26, 2020).
personal data
SURNAME Thomsen, Jens L.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thomsen, Jens Ladekarl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Faroese musician
DATE OF BIRTH 1980