Around for more than a decade with a couple of albums to their name in Happy Endings and Plastic Wave, Wuppertal is highly arranged and contains plenty of built in freedom. It’s not an ear blisteringly outrageous album in case you were wondering. But it isn’t a complacent listen either if what you mean by that are cheesy tunes, old standards trotted off or reheated off the peg approaches. The shrieking vocals in key passages see to that.
Collected from performances recorded between 2023 and 2025 in Belgium, Germany and Norway, Kit Downes pops up on organ exhilaratingly and at times the band burns with the same energy that English jazz fans might recall drove Loose Tubes, although what’s here has lots of Nordic twists and turns along the way that are all its own. Thumping, chunky riff shaped sections and a rugged offbeat sense of propulsion pump through pieces like ‘Clubinger’. Tunes are bassist Ole Morten Vågan’s.
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Tracks 1,3 and 4 Recorded by Tor Breivik at Loch, 4th of October 2023 Tracks 2 and 6 recorded by David Solheim at De Bijloke, 13th of October 2024.
Track 5 recorded by Tor Breivik at Moldejazz, 16th of July 2025 Mixed by Martin Ruch at Control Room Berlin, October/November 2025 Mastered by Helge Sten at Audio Virus lab, November 2025
