Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Espen Berg: Water Fabric
Espen Berg: Water Fabric
ByBerg is also heard to advantage in saxophonist Anders Lønne Grønseth's Multiverse band, exploring Grønseth's intriguing Bitonal Scale System. Multiverse's two most recent albums, Outer View (NXN, 2022) and Inner View (NXN, 2023), are highly recommended.
Berg's restless, cerebral musicality now offers Water Fabric, with a sextet completed by trumpeter Hayden Powell (also a member of Multiverse), drummer Per Oddvar Johansen, violinist Harpreet Bansal, violist Ellie Mäkelä and cellist Joakim Munkner. "Water Fabric" is a six-part suite which Berg developed out of a piece he wrote in 2005 and later arranged for string quartet. It was premiered at Jazzfest Trondheim in 2022. The seventh and final track, "Triple Point Suite," sounds like a separate piece, more light-hearted in feel, conjoined only by the instrumentation.
"Water Music" is mostly through-composed and one suspects that the improvised passages, such as they are, follow detailed, predetermined paradigms, such is the intricacy of the score. The result is lyrical, texturally inventive and compelling. Lest there be any confusion, however, it should be said that this is not a jazz album, unless one uses a definition of jazz that is so broad as to be practically meaningless. Jazz moments occur, but they are isolated and infrequent. Essentially, the album is a venture into the string quartet tradition, without a second violinist, refracted through a string trio. It is fascinating, substantial music, and if a definition is insisted upon, classical-contemporary is probably the best.
Track Listing
Sun Glacier; Circumzenithal; 1914; Hydrophobic; Acres Of Dew; Duelling Rivers; Triple Point Suite.
Personnel
Espen Berg
pianoHayden Powell
trumpetPer Oddvar Johansen
drumsHarpreet Bansal
violinEllie Mäkelä
violaJoakim Munkner
celloAdditional Instrumentation
Hayden Powell: trumpet, flugelhorn.
Album information
Title: Water Fabric | Year Released: 2023 | Record Label: Odin Records
< Previous
Tomasz Dąbrowski: Elevating Jazz Sto...