The traffic clears. It’s an into the mystic duo. Sampler, sound boffin John Derek Bishop and ideas strewn saxophonist Inge Weatherhead Breistein have released a few albums since debuting in 2018 – the monastic Mind Vessel and Ro (the latter recorded during a series of concerts in Norwegian churches, with Bishop manipulating Breistein’s saxophone in real time).
Characteristically electronica in nature. The ghostly hint of beats without stating obvious markers swirls.
But there’s a lot of this kind of thing about, a cynic would maintain. However, this Norwegian act manages to be distinctive and to get the style over the line.
It’s by carving out its own paddock, carefully shrouding the rhythmic underpinning, and avoiding being towed behind a chugging, no matter how immaculately soundscaped, wagon.
“In fact” it works extremely well. There’s an aura. A pursuit of the impossible cool isn’t the tail that wags the dog, mercifully. Style isn’t a prisoner to substance.
Breistein reminds me a tiny bit of the sound of the much missed Barbara Thompson (1944-2022) without going off on too much of a tangent if you recall the theme music for David Jason TV detective show A Touch of Frost although the style here is more oblique, not the same idiom at all as it is far less anthemic but more experimental in an ambient regard. The context is a world away from the Thompson/Hiseman universe. And yet some things chime.
This latest is fairly concise and within the parameters set by the electronics there is room for improvisation and Breistein is eminently listenable.
It’s a disadvantage for non-Norwegian speakers that all the tune titles are in Norwegian. “Light” is a theme in the names. So with the help of an online translator their meanings – do shoot me if wrong – are something like: in the case of Søkk i lyset ‘Dip in the Light’; Sidesyn, ‘Peripheral Vision’; Under Strømmen, ‘Under the Current’; Drømmekraft, ‘Dream Power’; Skyggeflimmer, ‘Shadow Flicker’; Et øyeblikk til, ‘One More Moment’ (or ‘Another Moment’); Den du når – ‘The One You Reach.’
It’s interesting and stimulating how the free jazz is mounted within an ambient picture frame and harnesses incredibly well recorded and produced field recordings that add naturalistic elements. “Immersive” is a much used and abused word. But these slices of “dream power” certainly are wrap around. It’s not just flakey ethereal sounds either – there’s plenty of grit particularly found on the formidable ‘Den du når.’
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