Anja Garbarek — Bellazon

svelte

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#1

Biography from Anja's official site

As a child growing up around Oslo, Anja Garbarek (pronounced An-ya!) learned from her father, the jazz composer and saxophonist Jan Garbarek, that the only rule worth following is the one, which clearly states that there are no rules worth following. While she doesn't take much notice of other people's instructions - "because I always have to find my own way of doing things" - that message stuck. It has guided everything she has achieved in her career so far, and it is indelibly stamped across her extraordinary new album, Smiling And Waving.

Recorded last year in London, where she now lives, this item of strange and shimmering beauty brings together a team of mavericks who share Anja's conviction that the only way for music to go in the 21st century is forwards. And few modern performers are as well qualified to help it in that direction as Anja Garbarek.

Biography from VH1.com

Anja Garbarek had no intention of doing something musical with her career, despite having legendary saxophonist Jan Garbarek as her father. Having spent a fair portion of her youth on tour with him, she became enamored with the likes of Kate Bush, Brian Eno, and Laurie Anderson, just some of the artists who populated her dad's record collection. After performing in a musical during college, the writer brought Anja to the attention of a friend in the record industry who ended up signing her. Attracted to the lack of boundaries that musical expression provides, as opposed to the lack of freedom involved with acting, Anja began her recording career only knowing that she had a lot of searching to do.

Her first album, 1992's entirely Norwegian Velkommen Inn (Come On In), essentially got her feet wet. In an attempt to flesh out her direction, she took four years to complete a second album, 1996's Balloon Mood. Another five years passed until her most impressive outing yet, Smiling and Waving, which featured contributions from Robert Wyatt, Mark Hollis (Talk Talk), Steve Jansen (Japan), and former Cocteau Twins associate Mitsuo Tate. Like some of the work of her influences and collaborators, the record fit the mold of avant-garde pop, along with tinges of trip-hop, impressively blending woodwinds with electronic beats.

svelte

Posts: 227

#2

Discography

Balloon Mood [cover photo]

Release date: Unknown

Label: Unknown

01. Beyond My Control

02. I.C.U.

03. Just One of Those Days

04. Picking up Pieces

05. The Cabinet