Midweek Mash

A folkloric fusion ode to Norway's stunning landscape, some "sci-fi screw-jazz, eco-noise, and pūoro punk" & some dubbed up avant-funk.

It looks like late autumn has finally arrived in the north of Portugal after a ridiculously balmy October and November which has seen leaves clinging to trees and apple trees in this area, and vines in Alentejo starting to flower because they think it’s spring. Let’s see how that affects next year’s harvests. I’ve never been quite so happy to see the mists descend, grey clouds roll in and the temperatures start to drop, and to celebrate I’ve got three shadier releases for you today.

Benedicte Maurseth feat. Rolf-Erik Nystrøm - Hárr (HUBRO)

I’m going to start this review by extolling the virtues of Hubro Records - label home of this fine release. They leapt on to my radar about ten years ago and have been shedding welcome light on Norway’s jazz and improvised music scene ever since. The world improvised often doesn’t bode well for listenability but fear not the label is quite approachable on the whole and downright cosy at times, and I urge you to dive in to its impressive and constantly evolving catalogue. Norway’s got talent.

This is Hardanger fiddle player Maurseth’s first long player for them, but since winning Norway’s Young Folk Musician of the Year award in 2007 she’s been busy touring, collaborating and releasing including an album for ECM which is the sort of musical reference anyone would be proud to put on their CV, and one which few folksters can claim.

Hailing from the stunningly beautiful region of Hardanger (honestly take a peep!), home of the world’s third largest fjord, this LP is a homage to the wildlife and mountain people of the region, and I can’t help feeling she’s done it justice.

Refreshingly for a folk artists she doesn’t shy away from electronic augmentation, not that it will jump out at you, the compositions flow into each other like crystalline Nordic spring water, but amongst her evocative fiddle playing you’ll also hear field recordings of the features and fauna of the region, as well as spoken words from now departed ancestors who were local residents. Couple that with non native but sympathetic wooden percussion driven minimalism and repurposed saxophone lines and it’s quite a heady brew that shouldn’t really work, but somehow does.

Definitely a deep listen so find a moment to focus if you can on its folkloric, sometimes classical, often musique concrète, yet always beguiling sounds.

WAIWHAI - Slowdown (NOA)

I’m keeping it deep and heading into darker realms with this age of virus emanating LP from WAIWHAI - a musical outlet for the enigmatic Rāhana Tito-Taylor out of New Zealand, which heads into psych rocking, free jazzing, ambient noise & mystical pūoro folk punk territory via some occasional hip hop bumpiness and indigenous indignence. Don’t be put off by my description or the somewhat unwelcoming opening track though, it’s a lot more listenable than it sounds, although to be fair it’s perhaps not one for the faint hearted. I’m also going to ease my burden and reproduce the liner notes, as they echo a few of my personal thoughts about 2020/21:

Dreamed up in a time of collective trauma, abject paranoia and anxiety moving out of the tail end of 2021, SLOWDOWN WORLD, apparent to its name, asks us to SLOW DOWN, moving gently while the status quo is asking in fear and preservation for us to speed up, to be more productive. SLOWDOWN WORLD draws attention to joy and horror, in a world of ongoing colonial oppression and denial of harm, ecological abuse via self-servitude and capitalism, and perpetuation of ways of being that are destructive to ourselves and te taiao. Ēngari, it is also a world of beauty - our bodies know, the whenua knows. SLOWDOWN WORLD is an affirmation of transmutation, resistance in noise, and abiding in our fullest selves in spite of seeming insurmountable pressures in the world today; a message potently met and encapsulated during a week of triumph in aroha following the Toi Tū Te Tiriti hikoi ki te Paremata ō Aotearoa (19/11/24), a resounding reverberation from the unification of indigenous resistance across the world in recent times.

This album is born of a gentle karanga towards rest and re-unification, simply for knowing.

AGILE EXPERIMENTS - LOUKAMADES (NONE MORE)

If you enjoyed the Holy Tongue and Shackleton release three months back now then you’ll surely appreciate the new Agile Experiments release from the prolific drummer, bass player and producer Dave de Rose. Agile Experiments is his roster rotating improvisational project, this latest iteration a trio featuring drummer Gustav Penka and guitarist and sound artist Marius Mathiszik, both of which he’s worked with on other projects.

With no forward planning the material on the LP was edited by Rose from four open improvisation sessions. I don’t know how long these went on for but I’m guessing some time, as he initially managed to whittle it down to 74 cuts, which the trio then chose their favourites from.

The LP has a great head nodding quality throughout a testament to Penka’s roots in funk and live hip hop outfits, although he steps it up into more post punk territory at times, the perfect rhythmic skeleton for Rose to lay down some great funky, dubby and post punky basslines and join Mathiszik in a late night FX and lo-lit looping frenzy. If you need a bit of Thursday night oomph then this is your jam.