Don’t expect to find transcriptions of any of the songs from these two recent releases, unless you’re looking up at the clouds for direction.
Peter Schwalm plays piano, drums, electronics and programming as he teams up with trumpeter Arve Henriksen (who also adds voice and percussion) to a collection of eight pieces that sounds like a summit meeting between Brian Eno and Chet Baker. Henriksen’s trumpet gasps and sighs like the emphysemic West Coast horn player, even at times speaking through the horn on dying wheezes to spacious soundings on “Bluteqeit”, the dreamy “Raumzeit” and the hovering haze of “Wellenzeit”. Schwalm’s piano is sparkling and crystalline with whirring support on “Unzeit” and on the crying “Zeitnah” with some Middle Eastern harmonies glowing on the synthetic “Schonzeit”. Enya with brass?
The team of vocalist Sofia Jernberg, tenor saxist-clarinietist-electronicist Kjetil Moster, baritone saxist-flutiest-electronicist Mats Gustafsson, baritone guitarist-zitherist Anders Hana and drummer Borge Fjordheim put an album together that translated means “All Is Nothingness”. There’s a bit of truth in advertising, with the album opening up with Jernberg in a fragile and eerie mood teamed with eerie strings before saxophone and vocals screams take over on the dark and thunderous “Dark Wish”. Drums thrash on the pleading “Intention and Release”, saxes rock hard on the careening title track, the reeds are shrill on the head banging “Kraka Rorde Sig Aldrig Mer” and the swirling “Imani” is reminiscent of the prog group Hawkwind in a violent mood. Should we dance or take hostages?