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Elsa Bergman
Space: Embrace the Space
by John Sharpe
The second album from the Swedish collective Space, comprising pianist Lisa Ullén, bassist Elsa Bergman and drummer Anna Lund, finds further intrigue and sustenance in the soil that nurtured its eponymous 2022 debut. The three principals share a vision of the piano trio that accentuates the percussive aspects of the format. They have honed that synergy over several years, having first united as the engine room of saxophonist Anna Högberg's celebrated Attack, which can be heard on another eponymous debut ...
Continue ReadingSpace: Embrace the Space
by Hrayr Attarian
The innovative Swedish trio Space is a collaborative unit that consists of three masters of improvisation. Pianist Lisa Ullen, bassist Elsa Bergman, and drummer Anna Lund separately and together work in the border zone between the modern western classical idiom and that of free jazz. The thrilling Embrace the Space is the ensemble's second release and consists of eight dynamic, interlinked pieces. “Look" starts off the album with an expectant mood as Ullen's percussive chords echo against Lund's ...
Continue ReadingElsa Bergman: Playon Crayon
by John Eyles
Ever since 1967, when British composer Cornelius Cardew's 193-page graphic score Treatise was published, there has been controversy about the role graphic scores play in improvised music. Having worked on Treatise from 1963 to 1967, once it was published and discussed, Cardew wrote Treatise Handbook, published in 1971, which shed no light on how Treatise's complex graphics should be interpreted. The reason for the historical note is that with Playon Crayon Elsa Bergman may be following in Cardew's footprints. The ...
Continue ReadingLisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman, Anna Lund: Space
by John Sharpe
Although pianist Lisa Ullén, bassist Elsa Bergman and drummer Anna Lund supply a formidable bottom end to the surging horn polyphony of Anna Högberg's Attack, on Space they find an alternative means to convey emotion and rapport through collective improvisation. Across five studio tracks, the Swedish threesome practices an egalitarian creed which does not privilege any one instrument over another. It is not an unfamiliar setting. Ullén and Bergman featured in a co-operative which adopted a similar approach on Festen ...
Continue ReadingAnna Hogberg Attack: lena
by John Sharpe
It is a well known gambit to start an album with one of its strongest tracks. But it must have been a difficult choice for Swedish band leader and saxophonist Anna Högberg when programming her group Attack's second release. That she chose “Pappa Kom Hem," which opens with a sustained stentorian bellow from tenor saxophonist Elin Forkelid, leading to a cataclysmic free for all, announces that this is an uncompromising outfit. But the way the cut ends with the emergence ...
Continue ReadingAnna Högberg Attack: lena
by Samuel Stroup
There are moments of lena, the sophomore release from Swedish group Attack, which feel as though the ensemble is as much punk band as it is jazz sextet. Under the leadership of alto saxophonist Anna Högberg, the group plays loud and fast free jazz which is as stylish as it is raucous. Even the monochrome album art and absence of capitalized song titles reflect the album's mood, energetic and effortless. lena's six Högberg-penned tracks revisit the style of ...
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