Supergroups as a mainstream proposition appear seem to have largely become a thing of the past, in part due to the music industry’s latter-day solo performer-centric focus and brute economics. Therefore, it has fallen to veterans operating in more independent imprint spheres to keep such convergences alive.
album review
2632 posts
It has been seven years since the last Concept album and although the line-up remains the same, with Trygve Fiske on bass, Hans Hulbækmo on drums and Oscar Grönberg on piano and Hanna Paulsberg herself on sax, they have decided after fifteen years of playing together to see how it sounds with a vocalist.
Here, with a quintet that includes regular friends Omri Mor on piano, Tal Yahalom on guitar and Yoed Nir on cello, it takes a further heartfelt look at some more of the nigunim that have arisen during Yosef's spiritual wanderings along with a few pieces of a more personal bent.
All four members are part of the fertile Copenhagen jazz scene and regular collaborators with other artists but here, Erik Kimestad, Mads Hyhne, Richard Andersson and Jakob Høyer have convened to bring their years of experience to bear on some of trumpeter Erik's compositions along with some group improvisation.
...heavyweight collaboration between bassist Guy Segers, percussionist Charles Hayward and guitarist Kawabata Makoto. Recorded live in Brighton back in 2013, the album consists of three extended improvisations...
After a relentlessly prolific and steadily diversifying 2025, it’s perhaps not surprising that Precious Recordings is one of the first independent labels out of the release gates at the dawning of 2026. With respectively refreshing twists, the below pair of near-back-to-back vinyl and digital outings confirm that the core business of digging up the BBC’s buried treasure chests – with consent - remains undiminished: LP-length anthology of The Twinsets’ triptych of vintage John Peel sessions & Jetstream Pony’s recorded live-on-air appearance for 6Music, Riley & Coe Session 09.04.25 EP.
...ruminates on the relationship between Norway and the United States, particularly on the flow of migrants in the nineteenth century. Having spent some time on the remote island of Traena, he uncovered correspondence and photographs sent between siblings who had never met as one had emigrated to Hawai'i and there is something in the dichotomy between two different civilisations that has been captured here.
Whilst the arrestingly cheesy-peculiar front cover of Impostor Syndrome is rather offputtingly redolent of something you might easily flick past in a car boot sale crate of decades-old novelty records, inside the sleeve resides an assemblage of absolutely charming warmth and ingenuity.
...although ostensibly jazz, the pieces recorded here run through a real mix of styles from light impressionism to dramatic rhythmic workouts.
Utilising, electric, pedal steel and Portuguese guitars along with electronics, his sparse, diffuse sounds evoke the lull of the surface and the mystery of the depths.
It is absolutely great that these pieces have found the light of day after all these years and is an essential addition to what is a relatively slender discography for such a long-standing group.
...an acute observation of a time in this country when things seemed remarkably bleak; but it doesn't jeer or harass, just observes and reports. It just so happens that the musical making is a delight and the singer has lived to tell the tale.
... a solid slice of guitar / synth graze, psychologically skewered on Adi’s impassioned delivery ...White Souls In Black Suits is a welcome Clock DVA reissue with the promise of more classics to re-released in the near future.
...really does come with a wave of enthusiasm as he and the band welcome you again into their dream-like world; the soft focus of the production, the ethereal keening voices, it all draws you in with open arms. It might be a little jaded, but there is always hope.
... after a snaky Sebadoh-infused instrumental prologue to usher us in (“Theme”), we’re firmly thrust into a series of tune-stuffed songs, with Josie’s magnetic vocals pulling things into sharp yet warm focus for the majority of proceedings.
Keith's voice is from that landscape, and his love of the outdoors comes through in the warm northern English tones; but the esoteric nature of the words, describing ancient geology, are secure in their place within this wilderness.
...they conjure up a momentous whirling sound that travels across borders seemingly at will, struggling up steep inhospitable inclines and streaming across open plains, as if something were in hot pursuit. But through it all they are reacting to one another's playing in a way that showers the portentous percussion with streams of fiery frustrated strings.