Though the release of Farmers Market’s long awaited new album, Surfin’ USSR, is shrouded in mystery, there is one thing they would like to make clear: they are not an Axl Rose side project.
Farmers Market is the Bulgarian-influenced brain-spawn of the Norwegian free-jazz quintet led by Stian Carstensen. The band hasn’t released an album in eight years, but its members have been busy.
Carstensen has been traveling on a Norwegian cultural grant, studying Bulgarian polyphony in Bulgaria and rural American Afro-Celtic music in the Appalachians. He also recently recorded a solo album to be released on German label Winter & Winter.
Farmers Market is known for their humor, complicated time signatures, and the ability to fuse traditional styles of music, like bluegrass, Bulgarian folk music, and jazz standards, into an asymmetrical and modern style. Surfin’ USSR will be released on February 19 in the US by Ipecac.
Farmers Market: www.farmers-market.net
Winter & Winter: www.winterandwinter.com
Ipecac Recordings: www.ipecac.com