This is the follow up to Grønseth/Multiverse’s first album (Outer View) for NXN which came out early last year. The NXN label is a part of Naxos, the label that has been releasing budget classical CDs since CDs started with only the occasional foray into jazz. (I have a Joe Temperley album, Double Duke, from 1999 on my shelves.) In 2019 Naxos created NXN to “put out interesting, innovative and original music that bends, explores and challenges the established genres……from neo-classical, ambient, jazz, contemporary music, and everything in between.……..releases have the recognisable 'Cool Nordic sound' in common.”
This album, Inner View, fits comfortably into that musical landscape, so much so
that first impressions could suggest that it is an exercise in the clichés of
glacial Scandinavian tropes found in early works on ECM and, to a lesser
degree, on some of the early albums on Edition Records. Thankfully there is
more to the album than that, but it requires repeated listens to overcome that
first impression.
The liner notes refer to
the ‘Bitonal Scale System’ and there is more insight into this system HERE
on the artist’s website. This system is only part of the structure of the music
on the album and there are references to classical composers such as Ravel and
influences from India and the Middle-East to create a sound that could be
classified as third-stream. Any starker and it would fall into the new-age
category and it is probably the moments of improvisation across the album that
saves it from that fate.
Inner
View opens with a three part suite, Biom, which exemplifies all of these issues; even the titles (Løvtraer (Deciduous), Barskog (Conifer) and
Tundra) place us firmly in a Nordic landscape. Løvtraer is the starkest of the three, followed by a gradual build
up to a howl in Barskog. Tundra is a
short piece, primarily for Berg’s piano, with only minor contributions, adding
colour around the edges, as it were, from the others.
After Biom, fourth track, Bidevind, shows the group’s improvisational chops at their best. A rolling, climbing, almost r’n’b-ish opening from Berg, supported by bass and subtle percussion. Knotty melodies are worked through before Grønseth, and then Powell take the lead, blowing long notes, maintaining that windswept feel that so characterises the album. There is space for each to contribute, aided by the clarity of the recording and the distance between the instruments. Powell, especially, contributes some fine cool school, blowing. It’s an intense piece and there is the relief of release when it comes to an end.
Bismaksvals
is
an elegant, wistful, mournful waltz played mainly by a trio of piano, muted
trumpet and bass. A plaintive exercise in the anguish of loss. There’s some
lovely tenor playing from the leader as a central statement before he
relinquishes the spotlight to Berg again. I really like his playing and these
moments are the highlights of the album.
Closer Bi Litt! (Bide a while!) opens as a nice
Gershwin-esque blues (An American in
Oslo, anyone?). It’s cool and relaxed, reminding me of the Ellington
recording of Billy Strayhorn’s Blood
Count, with Berg, bassist Auden Ellingsen and Grønseth all shining. It’s Grønseth’s best work on the album as he plays a long meandering solo full of
elegant turns before he both backs up and challenges Powell on the trumpet.
I’m looking back at the
language I’ve used to describe this album and see that wistful, plaintive and
mournful all appear. This suggests an album for a time and a mood that,
hopefully, won’t come by very often. Perhaps it will get another play if we
have a Scandinavian winter at year’s end.
There’s more information
and more music to listen to and to watch on Gronseth’s website at https://www.andersgronseth.com/
where you can buy the album, paying for it in Krone, if you have any to hand, and
he has a Facebook
Page with information in English and Norwegian.
Inner View is released on Friday July 14 through the website and through the other usual outlets. Dave Sayer
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