Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns: Bitches Blues
Norwegian guitar supremo Hedvig Mollestad, who also goes by the name Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen, follows her last album, Bees In The Bonnet (Rune, 2025), featuring her regular power trio, with the sophomore outing by her other trio outfit, its debut being the eponymously titled Weejuns (Rune, 2023). Bitches Blues, unlike its relatively exploratory, more diffident predecessor, presents a bolder set of statements, indicating that this unit has now begun to coalesce. An example of this self-assurance is the opening title track which unveils an uncompromising, take no prisoners bombardment of menacing, screamingly distorted guitar and organ and tumultuous all-enveloping drums, evoking the ultra-heaviness of early era Tony Williams Lifetime featuring John McLaughlin and Larry Young at their most unbridled.
By contrast, Kompet Blir is a slow, throbbing tune with a pulsating stately march tempo that contrasts Ståle Storløkken’s fleet-footed organ work and Mollestad’s clangorous legato guitar. It’s slightly redolent of Pink Floyd’s early experimental, space-oriented extemporisations. The pastoral For A Moment I Thought I Could Hear You changes the mood once more to lyrical, more delicate introspection, Mollestad’s finger-picked guitar gently weaving amid Storløkken’s meditative, liturgical organ notes. The soundscapey opening to Limite gives way to fluid single guitar lines over subtly building drum and organ interjections.
Mollestad employs dramatic metal-echoey guitar at the start of the aptly named Dynamax before it transmutes into an insistent huge rocker replete with screeching Hendrixian feedback whilst Ole Mofjell’s drums provide a backdrop of thunderous barnstorming percussion. The closer, Recollection Of Sorrow, is a perfect, poignantly sensitive reflection with Hedvig’s vibrato-rich plangent playing bestrewn over an undercurrent of Storløkken’s rumbling organ-generated bass. Light and shade permeate this album, an indication that Mollestad is never content with merely employing the clichéd sturm und drang of thrash guitar. In Bitches Blues Mollestad reasserts her position as one of Europe’s premier jazz guitarists and composers.
Discography
Bitches Blues; Kompet Blir; For A Moment I Thought I Could Hear You; Limite; Dynamax; Recollection Of Sorrow (38.23)
Mollestad Thomassen (elg); Ståle Storløkken (org, syn); Ole Mofjell (d). Oslo, no date given.
Rune Grammofon RCD2238
Kevin Figes: Wallpaper Music III
Over the course of his series of Wallpaper albums, multi-instrumentalist and composer Kevin Figes has developed a sound which is becoming recognisable as quintessentially Canterburian. Although Figes hails from Bristol there is a musical connection since he played in a group led by Keith Tippett, studied saxophone with Elton Dean and is clearly influenced by the subgenre. Thus, the album is studded with allusions to the Canterbury scene whilst the tunes remain refreshingly original and unceasingly inventive.
Vocalist Brigitte Beraha, whose contribution to the album is indispensable, dominates on the opening to Fair Weather which offers a nod to Hatfield And The North whilst The Big Flood settles into a comfortable jazz-rock groove replete with a sensitive charm courtesy of Beraha’s beguiling voice. On the irrepressible Modern Times Beraha’s puckish vocals combining with alternating helter-skelter ensemble passages and an underlying frantic beat ensure an earworm effect. Into The Woods opens with Beraha deftly duetting with Jim Blofield’s piano before the piece evolves into a spectral mélange of sound effects. February is a true synthesis of styles exemplified by a staccato, high vocal-led line closely tracked by Figes’ saxophone. The quintet manages to produce a gratifyingly rich sound on I The King where Beraha’s voice is twinned with Figes’ soprano.
Dorian Grays’ Bathroom Cabinet (sic) demonstrates just how well this band gels, the compulsively tight rhythm section underpinning the track’s magnetic melody. The eerie soundscapey start to Same Time Next Week develops into a catchy lyrical Latinesque tune adorned by Beraha’s wordless vocals, Figes’ languid flute and Ashley John Long’s resonant acoustic bass, before concluding with more echoey improv.
The closer Strangers On A Train, a wry spoken word dialogue between Beraha and Figes, triggers memories of Nan True’s Hole from Robert Wyatt’s Matching Mole’s Little Red Record (CBS, 1972) in its vocal device and fuzz-infused opening half-dozen notes. As a dramatic set piece, it’s wholly engaging with a bonus of the comically confrontational words being reproduced on the inside of the digipak. Contrary to the album’s self-deprecating title this is attention-grabbing music and joyously executed. Ultimately though, its Beraha’s lithe and airy voice which proves the group’s undoubted secret weapon in tandem with Figes’ artfully constructed songs.
Discography
Fair Weather; The Big Flood; Modern Times; Into The Woods; February; I The King; Dorian Grays’ Bathroom Cabinet [sic]; Same Time Next Week; Strangers On A Train (46.06)
Figes (as, ss, f, v); Brigitte Beraha (v); Jim Blomfield (p, kyb, org, syn); Ashley John Long (b, elb); Mark Whitlam (d, pc). Monmouth, 8-11 January, 2025.
Pig Records PIG20
Jason Kruk: Beyond The Veil
Jason Kruk’s second album follows on from his debut Leaving Saturn (self-released, 2009) and is characterised by a jazz-rock sensibility that echoes a plenitude of examples such as to be found on the Mahavishnu Orchestra-like opening to Ascension with Brian Donohoe’s searing tenor taking a lead role throughout. Unapologetic funk fests such as Awakening and The Lion change the mood, emphasising the tightness of Kruk’s trio unit featuring virtuoso guitarist Adam Rogers partnered by the equally virtuosic bass guitarist Fima Ephron. Kruk himself motors the tunes along with cracking snare-drum precision.
Kruk has recruited some big names for this album including Wayne Krantz, who contributes coruscating guitar on the lightning paced The Eagle and a screamingly spectacular outing on The Man. Snarky Puppy’s bassist Michael League and guitarist Bob Lanzetti appear on the opener plus The Ox, Wind, Creation and Water, bringing their inimitable heft to the proceedings. The sensitively ruminative Dad, with deft, exploring guitar from Rogers, reflects the fact that the album is dedicated to Kruk’s father.
Drummer Kruk, who was initially influenced by rock giants such as The Who, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, had his jazz ears opened further when he heard Tony Williams, acquiring everything that that innovative legend had recorded. Born in Milwaukee and raised in Wisconsin, Kruk began playing alto saxophone at the age of 10 before taking up drums. Initially self-taught, he progressed his technique by dint of study with Ed Soph at the University of North Texas, where he earned a master’s degree in Jazz Studies. Kruk, whose drumming is blisteringly vital throughout, wrote all the compositions, all of which are uniformly solid and invite serious listening.
Discography
Ascension; Awakening; The Lion; The Ox; The Eagle; The Man; Dad; Water; Wind; Earth; Fire; Creation (73.38)
Kruk (d); Wayne Krantz, Adam Rogers, Bob Lanzetti (elg); Art Hirahara (p); Brian Donohoe (ts); Fima Ephron, Michael League (elb). New York, no date given.
SunGoose Records
