Moon Inhabitants: Canned Luna

Is there anybody up there? The question is not as far-fetched as it sounds: NASA's lunar program is about to celebrate All About Jazz's 35th anniversary with the start of construction of a permanent lunar base (2030), laying the foundations for AAJ's 50th anniversary with its completion. Jazz will win: once the planet's taxpayers' money has been squandered, the economic interest found to be close to nil, and the scientific interest, still the fifth wheel, only AAJ (Thirty Years Later, the Vision Remains), and the Moon Inhabitants will stay.

Moon Inhabitants were brought together by Jørgen Fiske (drums) and Mikkel Dahl Amundsen (trumpet) while studying at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. A genesis similar to that of the coeval When I Return (The Weight of Bloom), whose Åsne Fossmark (sax) and Sondre Moshagen (p) we also find here. The shadow of Ornette Coleman is explicitly claimed, giving the group its name from the eponymous composition in The Art of the Improvisers (Atlantic Records, 1970), while also claiming the legacy of the Norwegian-Swedish free collective Atomic and Ole Morten Vågan's group Motif.

Apart from "Le Voyage Dans La Lune," entirely improvised, the compositions are by Fiske and Dahl Amundsen. Most of the themes are harmolodic, served by a joy of collective improvisation that occasionally crosses paths with Charles Mingus, through Johannes Lykkås' bass patterns, the Sun Ra Arkestra, and even in the spirit, the ever-missed Tom Cora. On "Eudaimonia," Fossmark and Moshagen take us first class toward the souls of George Adams and Don Pullen. But given the fertile individual and collective imagination developed here, the game of comparisons quickly falls short.

The Moon is celebrated through multilayered titles. "Ichthyology" is a contrafact of Charlie Parker's "Ornithology," itself a famous contrafact of "How High The Moon." But it also carries the watermark of its author, Fiske (to fish/fishing in Norwegian). It lets us appreciate the effectiveness of Lukkås' precise, nervous groove. "Dysnomia," which logically embraces chaos, refers as much to the goddess of anarchy as to dwarf planet Eris' satellite. Like our moon, "Dysnomia" has its hidden side: an inquisitive duo between Amundsen and Lukkås to discover at the end of the track. The visible side showed us the band's pleasure in putting harmolodic theory into practice.

As a drummer, Fiske cites Ed Blackwell, Brian Blade but also Tony Williams and Paal Nilssen-Love, via Per Oddvar Johansen and Espen Rud, which covers quite some ground! We end up with a three-poled moon that can be appreciated in group playing (Nilssen-Love pole) and solo in "Is There No Alternative?" (Blackwell pole) and "Dysnomia" (Williams pole).

Fossmark, 24 at the time of the recording, is particularly impressive for the assuredness of her improvisations, her pitch range, and the versatility of her playing and timbres. Nothing seems impossible for her. Worth following closely. In fact, everything here is worth following!

The cover art was created by Sofie Berrefjord, a young visual artist who specialises in jazz and blue: for example The Aftermath (Fjordgata Records, 2026). This beautiful cover was inspired by a Galileo spacecraft view of the Moon taken in... 1995 to celebrate AAJ's birth!