Darkly ominous tendencies
No one wants to be bossed around by a piano trio
There are lots of commands in the titles of tunes on this latest from the Johan Lindvall Trio you might think at first blush archetypally Nordic piano trio album. Stop. Leave. Dance. You get the idea.
Is it imperative to listen, you can’t help but wonder. And throw us more than a scrap of a single word for a title, go on.
Paradoxically the music isn’t at all bossy or terse.
And it has these factors massively in its favour.
Who wants to be bossed about by a piano trio or swamped by the sound of silence. No one is here.
Recorded in Norway
Tunes are by the Swedish pianist Johan Lindvall. End was recorded in Norway last year.
The trio has form – End was preceded by the Lockdown era 2021 album This is Not About You and two years earlier No City, No Tree, No Lake also issued by the Jazzland label.
Lindvall is on a clutch of groundbreaking Mette Henriette releases
Lindvall is also on free player Mette Henriette’s startlingly original records for ECM Drifting and even better than that slightly overcooked release the saxophonist’s self titled album which appeared in 2015.
End hasn’t got the lilting Scottishness (pray: why would it, for goodness sake?) of what Fergus McCreadie does with his trio. But regardless bear with the comparison: there is some affinity in the approach of each trio on this showing in emotional terms and the way Lindvall shapes the harmonies to lean in to the bass lines of Adrian Myhr in a McCreadie-like manner.
Certainly like McCreadie and a good deal of modern mainstream and even free-jazz players, Lindvall is at heart a romantic albeit on this showing quite a severe one and likes less-is-more statements nudged along by the drummer Andreas Skår Winther far more than the Scot.
The bassist is good at being anonymous where he needs to be apart from on the most obviously Keith Jarrett-like track ‘Dance’ and he is perfect on ‘Leave.’
With its insistent joy laden riff that threatens to explode and release itself from the confines of the trio’s minimalism ‘Dance’ is the best thing here.
But we also glowered indulgently towards the darkly ominous tendencies that the album projects when we least expected it.
End isn’t going to get the party started
It’s not that kind of record. It’s far more a solitary late night listen and works well as a kind of aid to meditation or for therapy if you dare think in such terms. We wouldn’t recommend thinking by the way that music is something there to accompany something else more important. Because when you come across a work such as End that has such a sanctuary quality to it nothing else really matters and you as a listener enter a fugue state. And why would you want to eat supper in front of it as what the trio does sates hunger itself.
But it’s not at all trite or safe
The tunes are actually almost all balladic and share similar tempi but they aren’t samey in any respect given the panoramic modal skill at the pianist’s disposal and the way the rest of the trio softly reacts. The only danger here is that some might use End as background listening and not engage with it. But there is a power here which will make you listen in the foreground and that is felt most with the doleful drum led atmosphere conjured initially on ‘Chance.’
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