Ever since the first jazz musician entered a recording studio or found the need for amplification, the music’s long and sometimes controversial relationship with technology was sealed. This month’s quartet of recordings is fairly representative of the ways in which today’s musicians are harnessing its potential, and even an ostensibly traditional work such as violinist Jenny Scheinman’s latest bears the indelible sonic thumbprint of its justly celebrated producer.
Kjetil Husebø: Emerging Narratives (Optical Substance Productions OSP009)
An accomplished composer and classical and improvising pianist, Norwegian sound artist Kjetil Husebø is part of a new generation of musicians who are pushing beyond the possibilities of acoustically generated sound. Using an array of synthesisers, samplers and effects, his immersive sound-worlds combine compositional logic and an appreciation of sound. Reconvening the same virtual trio with Eivind Aarset and Arve Henriksen heard on 2023’s Years Of Ambiguity (NXN Recordings), the musicians have once again recorded their parts in separate locations, but thanks to Husebø’s adroit mixing they sound like a fully interactive band.
The influence of Jon Hassell, prevalent in so much of the new Scandinavian ambient jazz, can be heard at times, though Husebø’s music incorporates some recognisably Scandinavian references too. The cavernous spaces of Waves Of Convergence could be from the studio of Geir Jenssen (Biosphere), while the dense sonic masses and atmospheric guitar on Fading Luminescence suggests Terje Rypdal. Nohtronica has a folkish simplicity redolent of Henriksen’s collaborations with percussionist Terje Isungset, and the rather beautiful Reveries In Flow is a Molværesque tone poem. Other standouts include the dark ambience of Ripples Of Connection and the glitchy Spectral Queries, but in truth there’s not a weak link to be found.
Lampen: Halogen (We Jazz Records WJLP67)
Like Husebø, Tatu Rönkkö of Finnish duo Lampen is equally comfortable in an entirely electronic sound world. He’s a key figure in Berlin’s experimental music scene. This project with guitarist Kalle Kalima, their second for Helsinki label We Jazz, places him in a decidedly more analogue space. Picking up where their eponymous debut left off, Halogen is a persuasive blend of long-form improvisation, instrumental Americana, ambient soundscaping and trance-inducing Krautrock. A looser and more improvised counterpart to Erland Dahlen’s atmospheric solo projects perhaps, and it should appeal to a broadly similar audience.
Kalima may be noted for his tongue-in-cheek humour, but he plays it relatively straight here, settling into a niche somewhere between Bill Frisell and Marc Ducret. Taking time to develop the potential of each piece, he plays off Rönkkö’s generally static patterns and generates a good deal of drama and tension. Rönkkö’s use of samples, layers and loops borrow from the production techniques of electronica, but never to the extent that the music feels programmed. I particularly enjoyed the dreamy Messner, where the laconic Rönkkö stretches time, the angular grooves of Soleil Du Sud and haunting balladry of Soleil Du Sud II, and the somewhat menacing improvised exchanges of Gluhbirne and Schatten. Kalima even finds time to demonstrate his dazzling post-fusion chops on the suitably bright title track, just one of the many surprises which can be found within.
Pericopes+1: Good Morning World (Losen Records LOS 294-2)
It’s been four years since Pericope’s unapologetically optimistic Up, saxophonist Emiliano Vernizzi’s antidote to a world engulfed by Covid-19. Since then the long-running trio has undergone a major overhaul, with pianist Alessandro Sgobbio and drummer Nick Wright replaced respectively by Claudio Vignali and Ruben Bellavia. Vernizzi describes this latest project as a series of futuristic reflections on the present, a time when rapid technological change is challenging notions of what it means to be human. The group’s proggy electro-jazz aesthetic is well suited to such a theme, and acoustic and electric timbres are balanced in near perfect equilibrium.
It opens with the cinematic Logout, the still ambience barely hinting at the energies unleashed on the very Eastern Cosmic Nirvana, where Vernizzi and guest violinist Anaïs Drago do battle. A short piano interlude is followed by Liturgico, where Vernizzi’s lyrical plaintive tenor is bathed in melancholia. Rue Sedan Métavers evokes the bustling excitement of the nocturnal city, while on the prelude to the Breckerish ballad Assange the sampled voice of the Aussie activist chillingly reflects on government’s uneasy relationship with free speech. Vignali is superb in the mildly dystopian The Dawn Of Algo-Rhythm, and with more than a hint of sci-fi the dramatic multi-sectioned title track sees Vernizzi navigating his way through a dense jungle of urban beats.
Jenny Scheinman: All Species Parade (Royal Potato Family RPF2410)
Sepia-tinged Americana has been a constant feature of guitarist Bill Frisell’s work for over three decades now, and from 2003’s The Intercontinentals to Richter 858 (2006), Disfarmer (2009) and Big Sur (2013), violinist Jenny Scheinman has been an integral part of his journey. She recently left New York’s eclectic Downtown scene behind to relocate to her native Humboldt County in California and this collection is both a love letter to the area’s colourful folklore, unspoilt coastline and airy vistas, and a shift to a slower and more expansive mode of improvisation.
Scheinman’s core quintet features Frisell with Carmen Staaf, Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen, and from the opening Ornette Goes Home it’s clear they’re a potent force. Post-bop freedoms collide with something more homespun, at once contemporary and rooted in the past. The 11-minute Floratone-like title track and elegiac Nocturne For 2020 (one of three tracks featuring Julian Lage) are the polar opposite of the fabled New York minute, strings of patient solos developed over lengthy arcs. Lage provides Scheinman with a playful post-Django foil on Shutdown Stomp, and he also graces the hymnal Jaroujiji (dedicated to the Wiyot tribe). If that weren’t enough guitarists for you, Nels Cline brings some post-punk swagger to surf-rocker The Cape, before treading delicately on the haunting House Of Flowers, where he adds an even greater sense of depth and colour to the ensemble. Seventy minutes of pure pleasure, and with the peerless Tucker Martine at the controls, super-deluxe sound comes as standard.