# Odin – New Opportunities: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/09/19/odin-new-opportunities-video/
- Published: 2017-09-19T11:26:09+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Odin was the name of an independent record label in Norway. It was founded in 
1981 by the Norwegian Jazz Federation and existed until 1995. The company was founded
at a time when there were hardly any independent record labels in Norway and the
larger companies were only interested in contemporary jazz projects to a limited
extent. **

Some protagonists of the current Norwegian jazz had just found a home with the Munich
label ECM. But Odin wanted to depict and support all Norwegian jazz – not just the
younger ones, not just the traditional, not just the electric ones.

Odin had a considerable reputation in Scandinavia within a short time, but not internationally.
At Odin, both productions of representatives of the slightly older Jazzmusik generation
of the country such as Thorgeir Stubø, Knut Riisnæs or Karin Krog took their place,
but soon also by younger musicians and groups such as the quartet Masqualero, like
Jon Balke or Trygve Seim. Some artists took out their first productions at Odin 
and then switched to ECM. Odin was the label for the jazz of Norway, at least until
1995. Then Curling Legs took over the catalog. Meanwhile, there were several independent
and relatively successful labels in Norway, which were also marketed internationally.
They agreed with each other and focused on specific playing styles and bands. Continuing
the project of Odin was no longer necessary around the middle of the nineties.

In the meantime more than two decades have gone into the country, the situation 
in the record market has changed dramatically. The market for physical CDs in Norway
has shrunk dramatically, says Andreas Risanger Meland. He works for the independent
record company Grappa, which includes several sub-labels and under whose roof Odin
will now make a new start. “You have been lucky in Germany,” he says. “In Norway,
there is a wide-ranging rapid Internet, and the music market is a lot of streaming.”
He estimates that hardly more than ten percent of the music market is based on old
distribution channels and product formats. And the good old long-playing record 
now plays a very important role again. CDs are now mostly sold after concerts. And
the old records? Just one example: In Haugesund, where Risanger Meland lives, there
have been three record stores in the 90s. Today there is still one thing left, which
accounts for a large part of its sales with used CDs and LPs. The people, says Andreas
Risanger Meland, are simply no longer used to buying CDs in a store. “And if I go
to IKEA today and want to buy a CD shelf, the piece of furniture is no longer a 
CD shelf, but media shelf,” he says. There are still about 40 record stores in Norway.

In this situation the old label Odin is to be awakened from its almost a quarter-
century winter sleep and led to a new flowering? But clearly, he says. He sees two
odin2
 Atomic © Fredrik Ljungkvist Reasons. Firstly, the enormous backlist of CDs
and records accumulated in the great times. The archives are well maintained, the
good quality material, the musicians are still prominent. The reactivation of the
backlist would be an important concern after all these years. Odin will handle everything
carefully and bring many parallels on CDs and LPs. Under the first re-release swing
are recordings with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, Trygve Seim, Christian Wallumrød,
Radka Toneff and Masqualero. The singer Karin Krog, one of the legends of the Norwegian
scene, once founded the label Meantime Records for the release of her own music.
Together with Meantime, Odin has produced a box with six CDs for Karin Krog’s 80th
birthday, which provides a retrospective and a current view of her artistic profile
and her great career: The Many Faces of Karin Krog 1967 – 2017.

A record label, however, and here Andreas Risanger Meland sees the second important
reason for the revival, can not only feed on the past, it must also turn to the 
current music. Odin opens this strand of his future activities with the publication
of a new production of the Norwegian-Swedish Quintet Atomic. Six Easy Pieces appears
in parallel in a CD and LP edition. The first edition contains a live recording 
of the band from Tokyo in February 2016.

It is important to look for new ones on the basis of the old treasures. Then Odin,
convinced of it by Andreas Risanger Meland, has good chances in Norway and internationally.

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