Hvalfugl: Øjeblikke Vi Husker

There's no denying that this Danish trio plays a very mellow mood. Based around the interplay of Jeppe Lavsen's mildly electrified, echoing guitar and Jonathan Fjord Bredholt's piano, this album continues the style that Hvalfugl captured on earlier albums. 

But while the melodies move gently forward there are small surprises lurking along the way. These include the crisp, borderline aggressive chords of the piano entering on "Fractal," and the abrupt electronic cut-off of "Under Viadukten." And the band are certainly capable of rocking it up too, as when Jakob Sorensen joins on breathy flugelhorn "in Regen Falder Som Sne" (The Rain Falls Like Snow).

The music could be a soundtrack to an indie art film set in the open wasteland of northern Jutland, not so far from the group's home base in the town of Aarhus. The album title even hints at such a visual link, its title roughly translated as "glimpses remembered." All pieces are short and simple, even gaunt, and never stray far from their opening premise, like scenes from Gabiel Axel's 1987 drama, Babette's Feast.

Caught between the archetypal genres of jazz, progressive and folk, this band purveys a type of dreamy alternative to all three. Its current single, "Sommereufori," is in fact maybe the type of high (a summer euphoria to the Danes) appropriate to these Covid times: tailored, clean and soothing.

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