Svenska Kaputt - Suomi (2015)

Svenska Kaputt - Suomi (Moserobie, 2015)

Personnel:
Jonas Kullhammar: saxophones
Reine Fiske: guitar
Torbjörn Zetterberg: bass
Jonas Holmegard: drums

Tracklisting:
01 - Mellantillstånd

02 - Paroni 

03 - Nötskalsmusik #1 

04 - Veesaltonen 

05 - Gårdagens Visa\Keijsaren

A brilliant musical project from the Moserobie jazz underground of Sweden – one that brings together four completely wonderful players, but in ways that are very different than most of their work in other settings! The sound here is very open and spacious – not in a mellow way, or an ECM mode – but instead this really introspective approach to the properties of the musicians' individual instruments – almost as if they're using this project as a way to thoughtfully explore things from different sonic angles, sometimes with a surprisingly sensitive vibe. Yet there's also some nice currents of darkness in the music – things are definitely never too sweet – and surprises include some piano from both Jonas Kullhammar and Torbjorn Zetterberg – alongside Zetterberg's more familiar bass (both electric and acoustic), and Kullhamar's music on tenor, flute, baritone, and oboe. Guitarist Reine Fiske also plays piano on one track – and guitar on the others – and the group also features drums from Johan Holmegard. [Dusty Groove]

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Torbjörn Zetterberg - Och den stora frågan om liv och död (2015)

Torbjörn Zetterberg - Och den stora frågan om liv och död (Moserobie, 2015)

Personnel:
Torbjörn Zetterberg: double bass
Susana Santos Silva: trumpet
Mats Äleklint: trombone
Jonas Kullhammar: tenor sax, flute & braithophone
Alberto Pinton: baritone sax, flute & alto flute
Jon Fält: drums
Everybody: percussion

Tracklisting:
01 - Knut Utan Slut
02 - Vad Är Inte En Metafor
03 - Säkra Tvivel
04 - Saker Överallt
05 - Kontorsmusik
06 - Vad Är Det Som Dör
07 - Innan och Efter 

08 - Springa Runt I Hjul

Over much of the past decade, Swedish bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg has pulled me into his world time and time again. He ostensibly works within jazz, but that category feels inadequate to his creative curiosity and artistic empathy. He's a strong player, but to my ears his writing, arranging, and concepts are even more formidable than his instrumental skills. He recently released two albums whose radically different approaches suggest his range. 

Om Liv & Död (Moserobie), the second record from his working band Den Stora Frågan, alternates between brawny solo bass vignettes and moody, often turbulent sextet arrangements, both of which evoke the visceral, emotive work of Charles Mingus without sounding like it. Zetterberg's killer band—reedists Jonas Kullhammar and Alberto Pinton, drummer Jon Fält, trombonist Mats Äleklint, and Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva—brings an appealing looseness to the arrangements, giving the pieces an impressive lived-in feel with strong rapport and interplay. "Vad Är Inte En Metafor" is a slab of hovering tension, with Zetterberg providing hydroplaning arco lines over which the front-line soloists make unhurried, probing excursions; meanwhile the rest of the group drops airy jabs and feints, both composed and improvised. The short, stop-start pulsing riff in the hard-driving "Säker Tvivel" halts for terse solo statements, then finally opens up with a longer improvised section that features scampering, clattering interactions between Zetterberg and Fält, soon joined by a wonderful gutbucket statement by Äleklint, one of Europe's best and most overlooked trombonists. 

The brief  "Kontorsmusik" sounds like it was recorded an echoing church, with Pinton and Kullhammar's flutes distant from the mikes for a wonderfully spooky vibe. The album concludes with the brooding "Springa Runt I Hjul", whose dark, fluttering horn utterances alternately cascade down and circle the bassist's throbbing bowed dirge. Below you can check out the ruddy, propulsive full-band track "Innan och Efter," which has a melodic sensibility that borrows a bit from Albert Ayler—though Pinton's baritone saxophone sounds more Big Jay McNeely or a bulldozer.

Zetterberg investigates much different terrain on If Nothing Else (Clean Feed), an all-improvised trio effort with Silva and French organist Hampus Lindwall, who's more an experimental musician than a jazz player; he's also the longtime organist at Parisian church Saint-Esprit, where the album was recorded. The music brings to mind wide-open spaces, with Lindwall producing haunting long tones and Silva blowing parched lines and sour blurts; it's all blunted by the acoustics of the space, which give everything a wonderfully washed-out feel, as though the music is arriving from outdoors, or wending its way through a ravine. From track to track the trio appears to takes advantage of varying microphone placement, which not only alters where each instrument is placed in the mix but also the timbral quality of each. On "Atonality," for example, Silva blows her Harmon-muted lines directly into the mike, while Zetterberg's arco surges sneakily around beneath the brass and the tension-loaded organ drones. "Cinematic" is an overused word in music criticism, but these pieces definitely convey a delicious suspense and romantic languor. Below you can hear one of the album's most turbulent pieces, "Stop Chords." [Chicago Reader]

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Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Archestra - The Reason Why Vol. 2 (2014)

 Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Archestra - The Reason Why Vol. 2 (Headspin, 2014)

Personnel:

Goran Kajfeš: Trumpet, Cornet, Percussion, Synthesizer

Per "Ruskträsk" Johansson: Baritone, Alto and Sopranino Saxophone, Clarinet, Flutes

Jonas Kullhammar: Tenor and Soprillo Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute

Jesper Nordenström: Organ, Upright Piano, Synthesizer, Omnichord

Andreas Söderström: Acoustic, Electric and Lapsteel Guitar

Reine Fiske: Electric Guitar, Mellotron

Robert Östlund: Electric Guitar, Sytnthesizer

Johan Berthling: Electric and Acoustic Bass

Johan Holmegard: Drums, Percussion

José Gonzáles: Voice

Tracklisting:
01 - Dokuz Seki/Esmerim
02 - Adimiz Miskindir Bizim

03 - New Track
04 - A Lua Girou
05 - Tamzara
06 - Yet Again

It is impossible to guess where Sweden's most innovative musicians will take us when he releases the new album, but one can always be sure to have a fantastic musical adventure. Here he begins with a few covers of Turkish psychfunk from the early 70s, and it he finds a groove that beats most of what he has done before. Reine Fiske electric guitar flippers away somewhere where no electric guitar found since 1972, and Goran Kajfeš self shines when he says Ulf Adåkers mission channeling Miles most exquisite funky tones in entirely new ways. Like the mixture arkestern spoiled us with volume one, we then both Armenian folk music and Brazilian influences, in a subtly beautiful interpretation of Milton Nascimentoz "A Lua Girou". Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra excel themselves, and it is thus mixed beautifully and ridiculously captivating both jazznovisen as connoisseur in the audience must cheer. [Nöjesguiden]

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Highly recommended! This tune is already nominated to swedish Grammy! One of the best album in 2014!

And you can find "The Reason Why Vol. 1" right here!

Gilbert Holmström New Quintet - Tiden Är Kort (2013)

Gilbert Holmström New Quintet - Tiden Är Kort (Moserobie, 2013)

Personnel:
Gilbert Holmström: tenor saxophone
Jonas Kullhammar: stritch, tenor, baritone & bass saxophone
Magnus Broo: trumpet
Torbjörn Zetterberg: double bass
Jonas Holgersson: drums

Tracklisting:
01 - 1976
02 - Osaka
03 - Desert Walk
04 - Libero
05 - Stars Fading Blue
06 - Dog Fight
07 - Indian Chant
08 - Tiden Är Kort

Holmström, now 77 years old, is part of the Nordic jazz legacy in its various incarnations. A Charlie Parker concert at Gothenburg's Concert Hall in 1950 left a lasting impression on him and convinced him to choose a musical career over dentistry. Gilbert Holmström led his own quintet in the sixties inspired by the American free jazz of Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp, and in the seventies his quintet— now called Mount Everest—alternated between fusion and expressive, acoustic jazz, later spiced with Latin elements. Since the mid- eighties his musical activities focused around the Jazzgalleriet in Gothenburg, his hometown, where exhibitions and concerts were organized.

Moserbie—Kullhammar's label—reissued in 2011 the classic album of Holmström quintet from 1965, Utan Misstankar (Without Suspicion), still considered one of the best Swedish jazz albums of all times. Recording Tiden Är Kort (Time is short) with a new quintet is a natural conclusion of the successful reissue. Holmstrom wrote all the compositions except the title piece, taken from the old Christian song.

Holmstrom is backed by Kullhammar and Kullhammar Quartet rhythm section—double bassist Torbjorn Zetterberg and drummer Jonas Holgersson plus the brilliant trumpeter Magnus Broo, a member of the Swedish- Norwegian quintet Atomic. This quintet enjoys supporting the articulate and commanding solos of Holmström, gently repeating and expanding his musical ideas almost like a choir, all locked in light swinging pulse. The emotional ballads "Osaka" and "Stars fading blue" highlight Holmstrom's soft and velvety tenor voice while "Desert Walk" and "Indian chant" emphasizes the tight and supportive interplay with Kullhammar and Broo, all three soaring above the hypnotic, propulsive rhythms laid by Zetterberg and Holgersson. The smoking, be-bop "Dog fight" offers Holmström opportunity to trade fast, muscular solos with Kullhammar and Broo. This heartfelt tribute to a great musical figure is concluded with a soulful ballad that injects a soft swinging pulse to an ancient hymn. [Allaboutjazz]

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Torbjörn Zetterberg - Och Den Stora Frågan (2014)

Torbjörn Zetterberg - Och Den Stora Frågan (Moserobie, 2014)

Personnel:
Torbjörn Zetterberg: double bass, percussion
Susana Santos Silva: trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion;
Mats Äleklint: trombone, percussion;
Jonas Kullhammar: tenor & baritone saxophones, clarinet, flute, percussion;
Alberto Pinton: baritone saxophone, clarinet, flute, piccolo flute, percussion;
Jon Fält: drums, percussion

Tracklisting:
01 - En Bra Start På Dagen
02 - Världen Är Sig Aldrig Lik
03 - Mästare av Vad

04 - Ingen Tid Till Ingenting
05 - DO-DODO-DO-DO-DO
06 - Hyllning Till Ovissheten
07 - 1+1=1
08 - Visa Från Mitten av Universum

Swedish double bassist Torbjorn Zetterberg did not record as a bandleader for more than seven years. Zetterberg, a member of the Jonas Kullhammar Quartet and a prominent figure in Nordic jazz since the late nineties, experienced an existential crisis at the peak of his busy, successful career. He felt bored and unsatisfied, so in 2010 he decided to leave city life and moved to a Buddhist temple without his instrument. He stayed at the temple for a year and still spends half of his time there.

Och Den Stora Fragan ("And the Big Question" in Swedish) is a welcome return. Zetterberg employs musicians who played with him before, most of them on his last album as a bandleader, Skildrar Kvinnans Kamp (Moserobie, 2008). He adds Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, who collaborated with him on a set of impressive improvised dialogues, Almost Tomorrow (Clean Feed, 2013) and drummer Jon Falt, a member of pianist Bobo Stenson's trio.

Zetterberg states that he now feels more and more that he actually lives his dream, as he should have since the beginning of his career. Indeed Och Den Stora Fragan is charged with joyful urgency, shiny optimism and confident flowing energy, despite the doubts and uncertainties that accompany any creative, artistic process. His tight arrangements with the swift shifts in rhythm and colors bring to mind the great bands of Charles Mingus. All these qualities are immediately summarized in the opening, 30-second piece "En Bra Start Pa Dagen."

Other pieces highlight Zetterberg as a resourceful and thoughtful composer, with a gift for sketching an evocative, even exotic story, as on "Varlden Ar Sig Aldrig Lik" and "Visa Fran Mitten av Universum." The powerful reed section—Santos, trombonist Mats Aleklint and sax players Kullhammar and Alberto Pinton—produce myriad colors. Zetterberg uses the same strong, opinionated musicians to question basic composition on the open-form piece,"Mastare av Vad."

"Ingen Tid Till Ingenting" is a concise, muscular and fast post-bop piece that stresses the ensemble as a tight, massive unit. "DO-DODO- DO-DO-DO" and "1+1=1" continue in the same vein featuring brilliant, passionate solos. The clarinets of Kullhammar and Pinton add a fragile, gentle colors to the lyrical,"Hyllning Till Ovissheten," that also features a beautiful solo by Zetterberg.

Brilliant, profound and inspiring. [Allaboutjazz]

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Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra - The Reason Why Vol. 1 (2013)

Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra - The Reason Why Vol. 1 (Headspin, 2013)

Personnel:

Goran Kajfeš: Trumpet, Cornet
Jonas Kullhammar: Tenor Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Flute, Lyricon
Per "Ruskträsk" Johansson: Baritone Saxophone, Sopranino Saxophone, Flute, Piccolo Flute
Andreas Söderström: Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Jesper Nordenström: Organ
Robert Östlund: Organ, Electric Guitar
Mats Äleklint: Trombone
Johan Berthling: bass
Johan Holmegard: drums

Tracklisting:
01 - Yakar Inceden Inceden
02 - Storstad
03 - Desire Be, Desire Go
04 - The Nodder
05 - Okwukwe Na Nchewube
06 - Badidoom
07 - Es War Enmal
08 - Karina

Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra reveals the DNA of X/Y on new studio album The Reason Why - Vol.1.

2011 Nordic Music Prize winner and his large jazz ensemble reimagine Turkish psych, Brazilian soul, German psychedelic electronica and progressive jazz/rock on the follow up to the hugely successful X/Y. In preparation for his fourth studio recording, trumpeter Goran Kajfeš trawled his personal record collection to choose seven pieces of music that join the dots between the diverse array of influences in his music.

The Reason Why - Vol.1 sees Goran Kajfeš’ Subtropic Arkestra reimagine such colourful music as the Turkish psych of Edip Akbayram, the soulful groove of Brazilian singer Arthur Verocai, the German psychedelic electronica of Cluster and the progressive jazz/rock of Soft Machine, Bo Hansson and Tame Impala, among others.

The Reason Why - Vol.1 is in many ways a direct extension of his ambitious X/Y project and acts as a tribute to Kajfeš'  myriad inspirations and also as an attempt to push jazz away from the beaten track and into new territories.

Croatian-born (Sweden-raised) Kajfeš is a tireless innovator and a key figure of contemporary Swedish culture. In addition to his work as a bandleader, sideman and producer, he has worked with film, theatre, art and dance. In 2012, he released X/Y, an ambitious two-part recording through which he expressed contrasting aspects of his musical personality. Described as "a total work of art" and awarded 5/5 by The Independent (UK), given 4/5 by MOJO (UK) and voted Best Album of 2012 by Rob Young (The Wire) in Artforum Magazine, X/Y earned Kajfeš the prestigious Nordic Music Prize ahead of favourites Bjork and Lykke Li.

With a nod to Sun Ra legendary cosmic jazz ensemble, the 10-strong Subtropic Arkestra comprises the cream of the contemporary Swedish music scene with saxophonists Jonas Kullhammar and Per Johansson, guitarist Andreas Söderström (Ass, El Rojo Adios), bassist Johan Berthling (Fire!, Tape) and drummer Johan Holmegard (Dungen, The Amazing), Andreas Werllin (Wildbirds&Peacedrums, Tonbruket) among others. [Headspin]

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The best jazz album of year so far! Hardly recommended!

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Nacka Forum - Fee Fi Fo Rum (2012)

Nacka Forum - Fee Fi Fo Rum (Moserobie, 2012)

Personnel:

Goran Kajfes: Cornet, Bass trumpet, Steiner EVI, Percussion, Tutor, Flexatone, Electric trumpet
Jonas Kullhammar: Tenor-, Baritone- & Bass saxes, Piccolo flute, Clarinet, Mini Moog, Mellotron, Percussion, Moisturizer
Johan Berthling: Double Bass
Kjell Nordesson: Drums, Vibraphone, Timpani, Tambourine

Tracklisting:

01 - Fanfarum För Forum
02 - Borkum Riff
03 - Jimmy
04 - Buss 446
05 - Dinner With Inner
06 - Yasuragi
07 - Gluck
08 - Occasions
09 - Fanfarum For Electric Forum 

The group's only a quartet, but they've got a combination of sounds and instruments to rival that of a much larger ensemble! The strength of the record really comes from the twin horn talents of Goran Kajfes and Jonas Kullhammar – the former on cornet, bass trumpet, flexatone, electric trumpet, and Steiner EVI – the latter on tenor, baritone, bass sax, flute, clarinet, minimoog, mellotron, and even moisturizer! These two stalwarts of the Swedish scene are well grounded by the rhythms of Johan Berthling on bass and Kjell Nordeston on drums (and a bit of vibes) – working with a firm guiding hand on some of the more focused tunes here, and really letting Kajfes and Kullhammar stretch out their tones at other points. Titles include "Fanfarum For Electric Forum", "Jimmy", "Dinner With Inner", "Yasuragi", "Borkum Riff", and "Gluck".[Dusty Groove America]

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Best record of the year, in my humble opinion!!!