Jazz Articles
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Samuel Hällkvist: Epik Didaktik Pastoral
by Chris May
Swedish guitarist Samuel Hällkvist's rifftastic electric trio plays an exhilarating mixture of jazz, prog rock and minimalist music. Riffs aside, the key ingredients are cross rhythms, rhythmic displacement and lavish servings of MIDI-enabled keyboards and tuned percussion. The result is heavy on the tension and light on the release. A close comparator is Swiss keyboard player Nik Bärtsch's work with Ronin in the mid 2000s. Try and keep count of the beats and you might well go mad. Better to ...
read moreSamuel Hällkvist: Variety of Rhythm
by Mark Corroto
Somewhere Miles Davis and Teo Macero are smiling. Swedish guitarist Samuel Hällkvist has taken their approach and refined it for the 21st century. What Macero began, with a razor blade and hours of fragmented and seemingly disjointed studio sessions, turned into the infamous Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970). Hällkvist journeys a similar path, and most significantly here, he travels that path with a unified vision. For Variety Of Rhythm, a follow up to his BoogiePost recordings Variety Of Live ...
read moreOestergaard Art Quartet: More Stories from the Village
by Hrayr Attarian
Drummer Michala Østergaard-Nielsen and her quartet's More Stories From The Village is a completely improvised set that captivates with its lyricism and its darkly cinematic ambience. This short yet compelling and cohesive disc is a mordant postmodern folk tale that relies equally on the fluid spontaneity among the ensemble members as well as their expressive individuality. On “A Road Trip To An Old Mountain" Østergaard-Nielsen, with her brushes, generates complex rustling patterns that match guitarist Marc Ducret's dense, ...
read moreNuaia: Belong To The Moon
by Eyal Hareuveni
Nuaia is a Swedish-Danish trio featuring guitarist Mika Forsling with vocalist Sofie Norling and percussionist Michala Østergaard Nielsen who both play in the jazz quartet David Angel's. The trio's sophomore album, after a self titled debut on Boogie Post Recordings in 2009, deepens their affinity for exploration of genre-defying, dream-state songs. Norling is gifted with an expressive, warm voice that immediately introduces her intimate state-of-mind. She delivers concise, poetic ballads with dramatic restraint and great command. ...
read moreNuaia: Belong To The Moon
by Hrayr Attarian
Built around singer Sofie Norling's expressive voice, Nordic ensemble Nuaia's music is delightfully unclassifiable and it uniquely transcend genres. Their sophomore release Belong to the Moon creates dream like, fantastical soundscapes that are intensely intimate and thrillingly dramatic. On “Don't Know Where To Turn" Norling's melancholic song drift over percussionist Michala Ostergaard-Nielsen's militaristic drums. Multiinstrumentalist Mika Forsling lays down a lilting, synth heavy, sonic tapestry that envelopes Norling's emotive articulation of the forlorn lyrics. Meanwhile, on “My Role" ...
read moreThomas Gunillasson: Glashus
by Eyal Hareuveni
The musical career of Swedish, Västerås-based guitarist Thomas Gunillasson flirts with early influences of Nordic metal bands and later sophistication of improvising jazz outfits and left-of-center rock outfits. Gunillasson plays in fellow Swede, and avant-garde vocalist Lindha Kallerdahl's GOLD band, co-leads the quartet Thymeshift with drummer Johan Björklund and leads the trio Les Pickadoles with ex- Zappa band drummer Morgan Ågren, known also from his Mats/Morgan Band, and bassist Gustaf Hielm, a former member of the Swedish metal band Meshugga. ...
read moreOrbit Stern: Ude i Skoven, Inde i Byen
by Eyal Hareuveni
Orbit Stern is the duo of Swedish, Copenhagen-based guitarist Samuel Hällkvist (known from his association with King Crimson members in his band Variety of Loud), and Danish drummer Frederik Hauch (who played in many local alternative rock bands). Both nursed a longtime affinity for an Appalachian twang but decided to take this mythic, relatively strictly defined genre and transform it into futuristic, multi-layered sonic textures, as if the Wild West banjo players and square dancers just retired from a tour ...
read moreSamuel Hallkvist: Return to Center
by Eyal Hareuveni
Return to Center is a detailed staging of a sonic meeting between man and machine. Swedish, Denmark-based guitarist Samuel Hällkvist, on his third solo album, contrast the digital exactness of MIDI programming with the human qualities and modes of expression that we traditionally associate with acoustic instruments. Thus Hällkvist and like-minded associates orchestrate a nuanced texture that bridges the natural timbre of acoustic instruments and inventive sonic manipulations and treatments that push the sonic envelope to new frontiers.
read moreSamuel Hallkvist: Variety of Loud
by Eyal Hareuveni
Copenhagen-based Sweish guitarist Samuel Hällkvist, winner of the prestigious 2010 Jazz In Sweden award, demonstrated his eclectic tastes on his 2010 debut as a leader, Samuel Hällkvist Center (Caprice), albeit still rooted in the jazz legacy. On Variety of Loud he even goes further, blurring genre boundaries between improvised jazz and his primary love for the turbulent energies of John Zorn, progressive rock, metal and electronic, while impressively juggling muscular, punchy delivery and sophisticated improvisations. Hällkvist calls his new hybrid ...
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