Jonas Cambien: We Must Mustn't We

Veteran Clean Feed roster artist Jonas Cambien (piano) and colleagues morph a cohesive yet uncanny take on jazz experimentation that defies rigid categorizations. For example, on "Swear Like A Bear" they integrate stammering chord voicings, popping sax lines, oblique world groove percussion patterns, melodic hooks and odd-metered time signatures into tangible sub-themes. The musicians merge convention with acutely placed schisms, and manage to churn out oeuvres that subtly span multiple genres. Each piece is a standalone entity, but there are similarities from a modal perspective throughout this sequence of mini-adventures, woven into a divergent path that playfully veer off course.

" Crib" is accentuated by the leader's lower register ostinato and Andreas Wildhagen's snappy beats amid off-setting passages and André Roligheten's windswept flute voicings, converging via a sense of urgency with flickering unison choruses. Moreover, the band's discordant outbreaks insert a dagger into the processes, although they follow with a graceful march progression and Wildhagen's melodic trumpet intervals during, "Renaissance."

Indeed, concrete structural platforms, variable thematic regimens and subliminal harmonic tonalities attain a gleeful coexistence. Cambien and Roligheten intermittently intersperse hummable song-forms and lucid unison-motifs into these deceptively complex pieces that trigger a sense of excitement on a per-track basis. Moving forward, "Sister" is a swaggering power-packed joyride initiated with the saxophonist's brawny phrasings, anchored by the pianist's cyclical execution of the primary hook and escalated by the drummer's rippling fills.

This album seems like a good fit for turning the hip college crowd on to other forms of radical and worldly experimental music that offers more than 40-minutes or so of shrieks and howls steeped in anguish. From a holistic musical experience, this production is akin to a fun-filled party that ends way too soon.

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