Konrad Agnas: Rite Of Passage

For Konrad Agnas it is all about the pulse, and you may be thinking it is because his day job description is drummer. We have heard him at the drum set in Alberto Pinton's trios, quartet, and sextet, Johan Lindstrom's Septett, a large version of the Angles, and various other assemblages. With Rite Of Passage he leads from his drum seat plus steps out with co-production, composing credits, and some synthesizer for this session. Maybe the American equivalent to this Swedish drummer is Mark Guiliana. Both musicians are musical omnivores, inclined to collect sounds from both the orthodox jazz canon and also those from contemporary non-jazz sources.

The brief opening track "Intro," the two interstitial compositions " Untitled 1972" and " Untitled 1971," and the ending few seconds of "Siwa" draw as much from hip-hop and electronic sources as they do from jazz. Agnas extends this galvanized approach with the title track, which draws a connection to Joe Zawinul's experiments in Weather Report and post-Weather Report music. Agnas lays down a heavy pulse via Torbjörn Zetterberg's bass and his drumming, then builds upon that with organ riffs and bass clarinet to create a grooved-out tribal sound. That same Zawinul feel permeates "Weather Report" with synth washes and the solitary tenor saxophone sounds of Per Texas Johansson. The dexterity alluded to earlier is evident in other tracks. "Siwa" opens as a traditional blues before building a slick Gil Evans-like arrangement, and "Bismillah" adds Vilhelm Bromander's tanpura, an Indian string instrument, to create a sort of Miles Davis-meets-world-music fusion moment. We even get a taste of Harry Partch with "Arthur And Jeremiah," where odd sounds are produced from echoey beats and familiar instruments creating unfamiliar sounds. This is inventive and compelling music.

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