Ulf Myrvold with Xoliswa Tom

Straight out of Cape Town – singer Xoliswa Tom will lift the roof off Christians Kjeller, together with Ulf Myrvold, who attracted a record audience last time he played in Kongsberg.

Xoliswa Tom has been touring the world for over 10 years, with projects such as “Under the African Skies”, the Amakhosi circus show and “House of the Holy Afro”, to name a few. She is usually to be found playing a singing African queen at a show in Rockwell Dinner Theatre in Cape Town – but she is best known for her work with the band Hot Water, who headlined at Germany’s largest African music festival. She is also involved in Bambanani marimba band, Mbombela band, and Woman in marimba.

Ulf Myrvold says “Xoliswa exudes power and energy in everything she does. Her joy in music grips you after just a few notes. We are very much looking forward to this collaboration, and to bringing the blues back to the continent that it originally came from.”

Musical meeting
Ulf Myrvold is perhaps best known for his nature expeditions – and has captured the imaginations of many through his nature documentaries. Not quite as many people have experienced him on stage, oozing the true essence of blues. A historian and an innovator, he communicates joy and pain like a real old-timer. His first album, “Old Memories” (2018) was nominated for a Spellemann award.

Musik website The Wilhelmsens wrote “These guys plough through landslides and thickets with an unstoppable energy, and it sounds just amazing. This is genuine blues, galvanised in rock and good old-fashioned roguery.”

Ulf Myrvold Band take their inspiration from recordings from the 1930s by artists like Robert Johnson, Son House and Blind Willie Johnson – dusty, soulful music that is the foundation of true blues. Other inspirations are modernisers such as Jack White, Hendrix and Ry Cooder, and not least the Tuareg style of Ali Farka Touré and Tinariwen’s dry African blues. These influences, as well as many, many hours spent out in the open, are the basis for Myrvold’s own compositions.

“It feels as though Myrvold has carried the songs with him through his whole life; on every journey, through every thought and every little step he has walked. They just pour out of him, his guitar and his voice. And the eminent band that stands behind him has an effortless understanding of the kind of structure the songs require. It is unbelievably impressive.” The Wilhelmsens

Ulf Myrvold’s band comprises Vegard Eggum, Julian Bugge Moe and Svein Olav Eriksen, musicians whose background is in progressive rock and pop. The explosive magic is a result of the meeting between Myrvold’s genuine blues idiom and the musicians’ unwillingness to be tamed by the “limits” of the genre. The outcome is innovative, while at the same time preserving the essence of the earliest blues we know.

Ulf Myrvold – guitar, vocal
Xoliswa Tom – vocal
Vegard Eggum – guitar
Julian Bugge Moe – bass
Svein Olav Eriksen – drums

Doors: 18:30
Show: 19:30
ID: 20