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Fire!: Testament
by Chris May
Recorded and then played back at reduced speed, even a seemingly simple two-note bird call reveals elaborate complexity and detail. It is worth hanging on to that thought when approaching the deceptively straightforward Testament. On a cursory listening, most of the album--an amalgam of Mats Gustafsson's slow-and-deliberate long-held low-end baritone notes and Johan Berthling and Andreas Werlin's matching bass ostinatos and drum patterns--sounds primordial. The recipe goes reductio ad absurdum on track two, “The Dark Inside Of A ...
read moreEspen Eriksen Trio with Andy Sheppard: As Good As It Gets
by John Eyles
The Espen Eriksen Trio--Eriksen on piano, Lars Tormod Jenset on bass, and Andreas Bye on drums-- was formed in 2007 and their debut album, You Had Me at Goodbye, was released in 2010 on Rune Grammofon where they have remained ever since. In 2016 British saxophonist Andy Sheppard was invited to guest with the trio when they played in London. Sheppard has since commented, “I knew from the first time I heard the trio play that I would fit right ...
read moreEspen Eriksen Trio with Andy Sheppard: As Good As It Gets
by Chris May
Norway's Espen Eriksen Trio is the first Scandinavian piano trio to enjoy a measure of sustained international success since Sweden's Esbjörn Svensson Trio's high-profile run was cut short by Svensson's death in 2008. While some listeners thought that EST's style was becoming over-codifed during its final years, EET still sounds box fresh thirteen years and many thousands of road miles since its debut album, You Had Me At Goodbye (Rune Grammofon, 2010). What is also remarkable is ...
read moreArve Henriksen: Solidification
by John Kelman
Constellations and the Something of Discovery Music as a chosen profession may suggest occupying the minds of its makers far beyond the 9-to-5 hours of your average job, but for some it goes further still. Transcending mere preoccupation, trumpeter Arve Henriksen seems to eat, drink, sleep and dream music, 24/7, 365 days a year. “I was sitting in my car recently, driving from Oslo to Gothenburg," Henriksen relates, “and I just started to sing and sing and sing. And I ...
read moreFire! Orchestra: Echoes
by John Eyles
A decade on from the release of their first album, Exit (Rune Grammofon, 2013), Fire! Orchestra releases their first post-Covid album, Echoes, their seventh altogether. This double-CD or triple-LP album runs for just over an hour and fifty minutes. It was studio-recorded at the Atlantis studio in Stockholm, in March 2022. Compared to past line-ups which have never before exceeded thirty musicians, this edition of Fire! Orchestra has forty-three members. That number includes such perennial mainstays as vocalist Mariam Wallentin, ...
read moreFire! Orchestra: Echoes
by Chris May
The story of supersized jazz orchestras is not pretty. The scene was set by the bleaching deracination of Paul Whiteman and the elephantine bombast of Stan Kenton, bandleaders whose craving for approval by the music establishment fatally compromised their art. Good taste came later with leaders such as Carla Bley and London's Keith Tippett, who proved that, in the right hands, swing and nuance could co-exist with size and power. Since around 2010, there have been some ...
read moreHedvig Mollestad & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra: Maternity Beat
by Gareth Thompson
Norwegian jazz-rock guitarist Hedvig Mollestad has never shied away from the big themes. Previous outings have seen her dabble with notions of Greek mythology and weather conditions, while channelling her love of guitar greats from Jimmy Page to John McLaughlin. Now with Maternity Beat, she offers a series of musings on the nature of family and social justice issues. Mollestad is backed here by the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, whose many credits include Chick Corea and Joshua Redman. It is Mollestad's ...
read moreKjetil Mulelid Trio: Who Do You Love The Most?
by John Eyles
In an act which might have raised a few eyebrows, Rune Grammofon released Who Do You Love the Most? by the Kjetil Mulelid Trio on the very same day as In the Mountains by the Espen Eriksen Trio featuring Andy Sheppard. Surely these two piano trios on the same label must have been competing for the same audience? However, closer inspection reveals that such speculation is likely to be wide of the mark. Firstly, the two trios differ considerably in ...
read moreEspen Eriksen Trio featuring Andy Sheppard: In The Mountains
by John Eyles
Formed in 2007, with personnel which has remained unchanged since, the Espen Eriksen Trio released its first Rune Grammofon album, You Had Me At Goodbye, in 2010. Since then, they have regularly released albums on the label, the most recent being End of Summer (2020). Prior to the current release, their only album which did not feature the trio alone was Perfectly Unhappy (2018) on which they were joined by the renowned British saxophonist Andy Sheppard. In the Mountains is ...
read moreEspen Eriksen Trio featuring Andy Sheppard: In The Mountains
by Gareth Thompson
Espen Eriksen uncorks a surprise at the end of this remarkable live album. For the closing cut, his trio takes on Krzysztof Komeda's theme tune for the 1968 urban horror flick Rosemary's Baby. To begin with, gothic piano hammerings and eerie bass scrapings replace Komeda's spooked female “la-la" vocals. Yet by the end, Eriksen's keyboard genius sweeps us into a realm of muted melancholy, pitched somewhere between dread and contemplation. It becomes a piece that seems to articulate the very ...
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