Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns – Bitches Blues

Rune Grammofon

Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen is quite the shape-shifting guitarist, each release with which she is involved seemingly reigniting her approach to the guitar. For the second Weejuns album, percussionist Ole Mofjell and keys man Ståle Storløkken return for another blast through the outer and inner reaches, wringing a wide variety of sounds and textures from their instruments and reinvigorating the trio format.

As on 2023’s Weejuns, six tracks are collated, but here things are a little more succinct although wildly diverse in approach and once again the three draw elusive patterns from one another.

The opener really brushes off the cobwebs, setting out their stall in an uncompromising manner; blasts of whimpering speaker-disrupting feedback revolve as the organ leaps and the drums scuffle. It is a profound but feral sound, scattered and restitched, moving eventually into a stately aquatic rhythm that has some cinematic tones, with the guitar and organ trading swipes across the bows of the supple percussion. The organ is dirty and the overdriven guitar sent overboard as they shudder to a conclusion.

It is quite the opening and one which they make no effort to replicate, instead choosing to explore other, at times calmer, directions. The drum and organ intro of “Kompet Blir” finds those instruments in a slow march with the guitar hitting a soothing groove. The organ has a tendency to meander while the guitar sits with the beat, descending carefully, picking notes that shimmer and waver with a kind of sorrowful romanticism. The choice of tones from the guitar and organ are just right and the trio fit around one another perfectly, complementing or antagonising depending on the need.

An autumnal organ spiral opens the gentle “For A Moment I Thought I Could Hear You”, the guitar a gradual awakening in a frosted field, its ’70s soundtrack vibe creating a duet that is careful and considerate, if a little bashful; while “Limite” finds them turning their backs even further on noise and smearing abstract sounds across gentle percussive hints. It feels like the whispered rumours of what has come before, preparing for ominous shadows yet to come.

Each track is self-contained, its atmosphere dictated from the outset with the lurking reverb-heavy tones of “Dynamax” intense and predatory but obtuse, as if you were being pursued by things that were lurking in the periphery of your vision. When you are overtaken by monster riffs, the growling organ noise starts the chase for real, gradually descending into a shrieking firefight, both players attempting to outdo one another. The sense that noise is bubbling up somewhere waiting to be unleashed is palpable throughout the album and the beauty is that you never quite know when the valve will split.

Closer “Recollection Of Sorrow” is another wistful downtempo number with shimmering percussion and organ drone that feels like an impressionist sketch, the colours bleeding into one another as it gradually descends into a warm, clear sunset. It is a fine finale to an album that gives up more with every listen and shows another side to the trio. This is a great companion to the more expansive Weejuns, showing that succinct and subtle is also in their repertoire. It is always exciting to see where Hedvig’s muse may lead and this album is no exception.

-Mr Olivetti-