Espen Berg: Water Fabric

The Norwegian pianist and composer Espen Berg has already carved out a formidable reputation with his trio. Earlier in 2023 he began a parallel strand with The Trondheim Concert (NXN), the recording of a wholly in-the-moment improvised solo concert, in the Keith Jarrett tradition, which he gave in 2019. Berg has since released two more albums in the same vein: The Nidaros Concert and The Hamar Concert (both NXN, 2023).

Berg is also heard to advantage in saxophonist Anders Lønne Grønseth's Multiverse band, exploring Grønseth's intriguing Bitonal Scale System. Multiverse's two most recent albums, Outer View (NXN, 2022) and Inner View (NXN, 2023), are highly recommended.

Berg's restless, cerebral musicality now offers Water Fabric, with a sextet completed by trumpeter Hayden Powell (also a member of Multiverse), drummer Per Oddvar Johansen, violinist Harpreet Bansal, violist Ellie Mäkelä and cellist Joakim Munkner. "Water Fabric" is a six-part suite which Berg developed out of a piece he wrote in 2005 and later arranged for string quartet. It was premiered at Jazzfest Trondheim in 2022. The seventh and final track, "Triple Point Suite," sounds like a separate piece, more light-hearted in feel, conjoined only by the instrumentation.

"Water Music" is mostly through-composed and one suspects that the improvised passages, such as they are, follow detailed, predetermined paradigms, such is the intricacy of the score. The result is lyrical, texturally inventive and compelling. Lest there be any confusion, however, it should be said that this is not a jazz album, unless one uses a definition of jazz that is so broad as to be practically meaningless. Jazz moments occur, but they are isolated and infrequent. Essentially, the album is a venture into the string quartet tradition, without a second violinist, refracted through a string trio. It is fascinating, substantial music, and if a definition is insisted upon, classical-contemporary is probably the best.