How Noisy Are The Rooms? (AT, DE, CH)

Due to the thorough renovation of the Tullikamari venue, new premises will be given a trial run at the Tampere Jazz Happening this year – but the charm of old Tampere hasn’t gone anywhere. The main concerts on both Friday and Saturday will be held in red brick locomotive sheds, which were built in the late 19th century and are even slightly older than Tullikamari. For roughly the past ten years, the sheds have served as the Paja Kongressi conference centre. The name ‘Paja’ [Workshop] recalls Tampere’s industrial, working-class history.

On Saturday, the suitability of these former locomotive sheds as a jazz venue will be first put to the test by a Central European trio with a very fitting name: How Noisy Are The Rooms? This rhetorical question also to some extent defines the improvised music of this vocal and instrumental ensemble, as it is indeed noisy or, perhaps in someone’s opinion, just plain noise. On the other hand, what else would you expect from an anarchic assembly of a jazz drummer, a classically trained vocalist and a turntable artist, all of whom make a conscious effort to test the thresholds of their listeners? Or is this interpretation completely wrong? Is the essence of this trio’s expression maintaining control of internal and external chaos?

You might find the answers to these questions on the two albums released by How Noisy Are The Rooms? in 2021 and 2025. The latter, titled Tühü, is in part imbued with Dada. The poems vocalised by German Almut Kühne were written by German poet and artist, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, who was known as the ‘Mother of Dadaism’ and whose entire life was performance.