The Norwegian artist and saxophonist’s expressive use of physicality, vulnerability, and endurance – no overdubs, looping, or effects; just body, breath, and saxophone – have already won him much critical acclaim. 

You can hear all of this in his two albums, both released by Smalltown Supersound: Surrender, released at the start of 2019, and 2021’s Cracks – which was nominated for two Norwegian Grammys. The strength and muscle control required to master circular breathing on the saxophone, the unusual technique he employs to mesmerizing effect, is audible. 

As a practice, circular breathing induces in the player – and perhaps the listener, too – a kind of altered state, more open to discovery. And as a cycle of sound it defies time. This atemporality, or out-of-timeliness, hints at theorist José Muñoz’s notion of “queer time”, which is a chronology wholly other than the default. With his striking, embodied performances, Giske gives new aesthetic wonder to this defiance. 

http://bendikgiske.no/
https://bendikgiske.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/bendikgiske/