Ivar Grydeland: Boyning, brytning

Born in 1976 in Trondheim—the third most populous city in Norway, and one which is renowned for its jazz festival—guitarist Ivar Grydeland studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music from 1996 to 2000, and again from 2001 to 2003. He plays a dazzling range of instruments. There are acoustic and electric guitars and banjo with a mix of finger-picking techniques, various bows, metal propellers, and electronic devices, as well as mandolin, pedal steel guitar, ukulele, zither, keyboards, pocket piano, and a drum machine (rhythm 77). His first recording, Visiting Ants, a duo with percussionist Ingar Zach, was recorded and released in 2000 on the Sofa label which was founded by musicians including Zach and Grydeland.

Many admirers of their music may have come to Zach and Grydeland via the trio Huntsville, which comprised the duo plus Tonny Kluften on bass. The trio released six albums between For The Middle Class (Rune Grammofon, 2006) and Bow Shoulder (Hubro, 2020). Despite the demands of Huntsville, Grydeland found time for other bands, including the Norwegian trio Ballrogg, the quartet Dans Les Arbres, and even the Norwegian country-rock band Last Heat.

Boyning, brytnyng (Bending, breaking) is Grydeland's fourteenth album, and his third solo effort. His first two solo albums were Bathymetric Modes (Hubro, 2012) which was labelled as Contemporary Jazz and Free Improvisation, and Stop Freeze Wait Eat (Hubro, 2015), which was labelled as Free Improvisation and Experimental. Since then, Grydeland's only non-solo release has been In The Arctic Dreamtime (Rune Grammofon, 2020), a duo with American guitarist Henry Kaiser.

Despite the billing of Boyning, brytning as a solo album, the Norway-based drummer and percussionist Michaela Antalova plays on the seventeen-minute opening track "Virkning av lysets beyning," which occupies about half of the album's playing time. The recording —and a Youtube clip of Grydeland and Antalova playing the piece— suggest the two musicians have great promise as a duo. Meanwhile, until that partnership develops, Grydeland has a bright future as a solo artist, exploring the possibilities of his plethora of instruments and the diverse sounds he draws from them.