Per Texas Johansson: Stråk på himlen och stora hus

Swedish multi-woodwind expert and composer Per Texas Johansson is a musical freethinker who dishes out a series of unfettered compositions, injected with heartening attributes on his latest solo effort. As a top-flight session artist, Johansson has been at the forefront of the fertile Scandinavian music scene. Here, the artist blends a multidimensional soundscape with vocalists who often shade or reshape the proceedings with hallowed wordless choruses, while also providing depth to these resonating thematic overtures, spiked with up-tempo motifs, sanguine melodies, shuffling grooves and spry sub-themes.

"Stråk på himlen och stora hus" is peppered by drummer Konrad Agnas' snappy rimshots, as the leader envelops his oboe phrasings with a dash of studio echo, which is a facet that extends the compositional profundity. Consequently, many of these works highlight the band's harmonious melody-making, occasionally countered by flotation-like sequences, and hard-hitting pulses. Although Johansson's wistful clarinet-based ballad "Här börjar regnbågen" poses a sense of isolation amid a tinge of hope atop the drummer's sprinkling bells and violinist Josefin Runsteen supple accents. There are no firestorms or propulsive trajectories during this acutely produced album that brims with well-articulated dynamics and jaunty movements.

Other regions of sound and scope are designed with circular constructions, escalated by venerable mallet instrument performer Mattias Ståhl's popping and rhythmically inclined notes along with themes built on folk jazz persuasions and breezy midsections, frequently transformed into gentle passages. Nonetheless, Johansson triumphantly surges onward with compositions that often integrate the power of suggestion into a jazzy artform that breathes newfound qualitative aspects.