You never know why those are people here and there coming to your attention at the the very first try and eventually getting you in the will to know more about them. Four years spent on embellishing our life with top notched remixes for people such as Nuspirit Helsinki, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Fenomenon have definitely put Norwegian pair Snorre Seim & Øywind Jakobsen - better known as Butti 49 - onto such a position. The recent release of their Habit debut-LP giving us the opportunity to fullfil our long time wish…

Waow, what a fluidity on your compositions. Does the fact that you live by the sea in Stavanger have anything to do with this ?

Not really sure. I guess growing up in Stavanger, with sandy beaches on one side and snowy mountains on the other gives you the best of several things. It might have done something to us as persons, but fluidity on our sound is more of because of us having quite a musical approach to making music for clubs…

Tell us about your environment. The local scene ?

We are surrounded by all kinds of people, and not a very big scene for our style of music. We find this quite positive. There's a lot of music talent over here, and many are very interested in working across the genres. The Norwegian scene for pop music is quite good at the moment, and many of the people there is good inspiration.

First experience with music ? Background ? Childhood ?  Studies ?

I was taken to an afternoon jazz club by my parents almost every Saturday at the age of 5. My favourite thing there was being as close to the drum-set as possible. That might have sparked an interest for rhythm. My partner Øyvind joined the schoolband quite early and was the kind of drummer who read a Donald Duck Magazine during rehearsal - very talented. Later on, we both caught interest in the Acid jazz wave that came in the early nineties. This didn't mean we turned into complete jazzheads at once. Øyvind has also been a heavy metal drummer and I have DJ'ed in a rock club for 3,5 years. We're into all kinds of music. I'm currently deeply into country and bluegrass and Øyvind plays with Norway's biggest (and best) rockstar - Thomas Dybdahl - at the moment…

Your meeting ? Who's doing what ?

I met Øyvind when he played in a band called State of Mind. I hooked them up with their first proper gig. Later on they changed name to Quadraphonics and went to A Touch Of Jazz studios to record with Jazzy Jeff. Sadly this story stopped there and the group disbanded. It was after this I approached members from Quadraphonics to make a track - that became the "Brasilikum" track which was our first.

Øyvind is a multi-instrumentalist and a very fast programmer. I do sketches on tracks and take them to him - after this we develop tracks. Either with Øyvind doing instruments or others.

Why Butti 49 ? What does this stand for ?

After finishing the Brasilikum track, I went to Prague to get it pressed. I was doing the graphics for the centerlabel at 04:00 in the morning before. I was really tired but we had no name for that artist, and with me being a typography nerd, I just picked the name of the guy who made the Microgramma type in 1949 (Roberto Butti). The 7" we pressed was only for club promo purpose and we didn't know that we'd actually started a much longer process.

Your influences look like quite diverse…

As mentioned earlier - living here is more diverse musically than you might think, cause you need to see what everyone else is doing too. We don't have a big club scene where everything is strict or whatever.

Have you been influenced by the "shabada" jazz of people like Pharoah Sanders or Brooklyn Funk Essentials who icidentally was produced by a Swedish guy (Lati Kronlund) ?

Don't know what you mean about shabada jazz… I came late into the spiritual jazz stuff. When buying Leon Thomas "Spirits Known And Unknown", I kind of felt I had the ultimate spiritual jazz record. To be honest, I'm not too keen on Sun Ra or Alice Coltrane kind of stuff - but I might do later, that's the way it works on me. When it comes to scandi-jazz stuff, my fave is Berndt Egerbladh (a Swedish pianist who produced the Doris album for Doris Svensson at the end of the 70's). He's got great kind of folky bits and spirituality on his jazz compositions. The Norwegian scene has got one star, that's Karin Krogh - her "Karins Kick" track is just amazing. The rest of Norway's jazz-history has been concentrated around ECM-recording artist doing what I call mountain-jazz. This has had a great impact on Norway's jazz. Evev though I think of it as lacking soul. The newer acts like Wibutee, Zanussi5 and Jaga Jazzist, I find interesting - especially the latest

Nik (Weston) talks about nu jazz on the sleeve notes of your album. How do you feel with this ?

I think this whole scene needs to get a grip on how to sell itself. If it's not more conscious about what to call itself, it will struggle winning new listeners forever and die at the end. Hip hop or drum & bass are so much stronger and it's much easier for new listeners to approach the music and the scene. If you don't name yourself, other will and then a great jazz album might end up in badly named genre like electronica or chill out...People can call my music however they want. For me, it's all about soul, jazz and funk. There's nothing new to what we do, but if calling it "nu" reaches more listeners, which I won't complain about.

There are obviously many approaches of contemporary jazz in Scandinavia, from Bugge Wesseltoft and his label mates to Koop, Hird and Nuspirit Helsinki. Who do you feel the closest to and what's your own perspective ?

I think the nearest for us would be Nuspirit Helsinki from Finland. They have the same blend of programming and live recording. Also a strong feeling of soul is there. I love their album. I think it's probably the best one I know on the soulful/nu jazz genre. We've also played with them in Copenhagen, plus the DJ's have been here. Some mad but really great people!

Some people used to talk about the Nordik beat at the beginning of the nineties. Would you say that there's a Scandinavian typical touch/state of mind as compared to other places in Europe ?

Not really. Norwegian might have been looked upon as a bit arty, but we're not and don't feel like as far as we're concerned. There are different constellations around that may have similar sound, but it might as well have come from Australia or anywhere else...

Why Habit by the way as a title for this album ?

Cause the sounds that we've blended on our album are our habits. Soul, funk, jazz, bits of rock and pop, world sounds, whatever...

Has this taken a long time for it to be recorded ?

Too long, probably 2,5 yrs. Next one we'll do in 3 weeks.

You've brilliantly remixed "Release For Free" for EMO on German label Stereo Deluxe. Then we have you back together on the opening cut of this album. Does this mean further projects with him ?

We have become good friends with Emil. We love his voice and hopefully we're gonna do some more in the future.

Is Mayia (James) fully integrated with the band ?

We hope to include both Emo and Mayia on stage.

Judging by your organic approach, I guess we may expect some live performances from you in the very near future. How many people would you be on stage and where can we expect you in the forthcoming months ?

We'll be nine on stage with this project. We're currently planning touring.

What about your DJing experience(s) ? Your residency/ies ?

I've had a recidency in Stavanger for some years which was weekly. I've stopped that now. Over the years, I've had some of the greatest of DJ's there. What strikes me is that all of them are great people. I've also been lucky to go around Europe to DJ. I think I'm really to be asked to come and play anywhere else in the world. 

Quite encouraging to see all these people around such as Jazzanova, Trüby Trio, Magic Number, dZihan & Kamien, Mark De Clive-Lowe and Raw Deal to name but a few doing first class music, despite the current state of the record industry…

I think the industry needs to stop whining about the state of itself. Everyone who's focusing on the music rather than the money gets things going. A few years ago, we got paid huge amounts for remixing  which to me was not a normal situation - I think we're returning to the normal now.

The next step for you ? Your forthcoming projects ?

We are hopefully touring soon. I'm also studying at the moment. I've got some solo-tracks to finish for the Hi Fi Terapi label in Norway. They might be out before 2006. There's also a Butti 49 remixes album coming out this year. This will contain the best mixes we've done for others, so watch out.

Anything that you'd like to add ?

Thanks for having me.

BUTTI 49 Habit LP (Exceptional)