review of Lightning trio's Lightning

It is slightly frustrating that to all intents and purposes 3 of the 9 tracks here are too slight to register much – let’s be charitable and call them vignettes – to be anything more than mere bagatelles. Pleasurably so. But blink and you’d miss ‘Flotsam,’ comrade piece ‘Jetsam’ and the flute bedecked extra dimension found on ‘Lagan.’

That’s one quibble out of the way. But more positively ‘Past’ – a previous track of the week last month on marlbank – is far more satisfying than any of the above which really act as teasers, not even interludes although you could see them as such, in a certain sense among other functions. I still find the flute lines from Ketija Ringa a diversion and usually prefer flute in a full woodwind and reeds setting which you don’t get here as it’s at its core a piano trio album. ‘McQueen’s Disco’ has an almost Scottish lilt to it and the sound on this sits well enough with what Fergus McCreadie does even when the little gracenotes and accents are different to Scottish folk music as mediated via jazz.

Lightning Trio, certainly a lot snappier a name than listing members of the piano trio from Norway and Estonia, was formed three years ago in Trondheim.

Members are pianist Sondre Moshagen, double bassist Kertu Aer and drummer Steinar Heide Bø. It’s a collective vision and I think it works as a unit. In other words it’s not all about the piano player which often happens and when that does the other members become bit parts or backing musicians.

Moshagen has a lot of technique – you kind of have to have great technique to put yourself out in a setting like this. But if you are only coming to the record for a rhapsodic piano vision however the track to gravitate to for this is certainly the tender ‘Wandering Towards the Light.’

Some tracks are a little too introverted and that’s saying something as the pervasive style of a lot of Nordic piano trios is exceptionally hush laden. But overall I am glad I went back to seek this one out. It was released earlier in August and I would happily choose to see the trio live with or without the flute player in attendance. Hopefully they will fold in a lot more material on their next record and expand the sound as it certainly would be interesting to hear it scaled up even more.