Biography
Norwegian saxophonist and performer Bendik Giske shapes intensely physical and sensual sound through circular breathing methods, drawing from ambient, avant-jazz, and club traditions. His 2019 solo debut Surrender emerged as a completely unassisted recording free of overdubs or effects, yet Giske maintains extensive partnerships, including work alongside Nils Bech, Pavel Milyakov, and André Bratten, the latter shaping the more expansive 2021 album Cracks.
Born in Oslo, Giske divided his years between that city and Bali, where immersion in traditional dance forms later shaped his live presentations. He performed saxophone with the jazz ensemble Listen! and contributed to additional Norwegian projects. Several Nils Bech releases on Oslo’s Fysisk Format and Brooklyn’s DFA feature Giske’s co-written material. The 2017 solo composition “Music for Dance: The Gun,” created for Magnus Myhr’s dance piece and captured in one take, appeared that year. In 2018 Giske joined Smalltown Supersound and issued the EP Adjust, presenting five renditions of the title track with reinterpretations from experimental club artists Lotic and Total Freedom plus dark ambient figure Deathprod. The original version resurfaced on Surrender, recorded at Oslo’s Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum under producer Armund Ulvestad, who positioned numerous miniature microphones around Giske’s instrument and body while the artist executed each piece without overdubs, looping, or effects.
During 2021 Giske joined Russian experimental techno producer Pavel Milyakov, also known as Buttechno, for a short album of seven untitled tracks. He also contributed saxophone and vocal reinterpretation to Caterina Barbieri’s Fantas Variations. Later that year he released Cracks, an album drawing inspiration from Cuban-American writer and theorist José Muñoz’s book Cruising Utopia and produced by André Bratten, who introduced broader spatial dimensions to the playing. A single featuring Laurel Halo’s remixes of the album track “Cruising” followed.
Born in Oslo, Giske divided his years between that city and Bali, where immersion in traditional dance forms later shaped his live presentations. He performed saxophone with the jazz ensemble Listen! and contributed to additional Norwegian projects. Several Nils Bech releases on Oslo’s Fysisk Format and Brooklyn’s DFA feature Giske’s co-written material. The 2017 solo composition “Music for Dance: The Gun,” created for Magnus Myhr’s dance piece and captured in one take, appeared that year. In 2018 Giske joined Smalltown Supersound and issued the EP Adjust, presenting five renditions of the title track with reinterpretations from experimental club artists Lotic and Total Freedom plus dark ambient figure Deathprod. The original version resurfaced on Surrender, recorded at Oslo’s Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum under producer Armund Ulvestad, who positioned numerous miniature microphones around Giske’s instrument and body while the artist executed each piece without overdubs, looping, or effects.
During 2021 Giske joined Russian experimental techno producer Pavel Milyakov, also known as Buttechno, for a short album of seven untitled tracks. He also contributed saxophone and vocal reinterpretation to Caterina Barbieri’s Fantas Variations. Later that year he released Cracks, an album drawing inspiration from Cuban-American writer and theorist José Muñoz’s book Cruising Utopia and produced by André Bratten, who introduced broader spatial dimensions to the playing. A single featuring Laurel Halo’s remixes of the album track “Cruising” followed.
Albums
Singles
