A secular hymnal to modernity: rapid fire clusters and dartingly uneasy modernisms wrap the core approach in uncomplacent rhythm
“When the hope of the world stood withered.”
Personally I find the name of this trio off putting. I looked up what it is supposed to mean and certainly finding this out satisfies me a bit but not that much.
Apparently the notion is that the PVP word salad derives its name from combining one distinct word from each member’s native language to reflect their individual origins alongside their collective musical philosophy.
The first element, “Punkt”, is the Swedish word for “point” [the bassist is Swedish] or “dot”. This is paired with the Slovenian word “Vrt”, meaning “garden” [the pianist is Slovenian], which apparently symbolises a fertile creative space where raw musical ideas can be planted and cultivated. Finally, the German word “Plastik” [the drummer is German – he would be, wouldn’t he] connotes the concept of plasticity, denoting the flexibility and physical shaping of sound structures.
Phew. Don’t say we don’t spoil you with slightly abstruse exporations on a Saturday evening as a warm womb of post Lughnasadh darkness envelops the boreens down here in the marlbank neck of the woods where the land is really a lough. The scene and this nevertheless not that overly gloomy release chimes with what Beckett wrote memorably in his novel Malone Dies, part of the great miserabilist’s 1950s trilogy: “The little cloud drifting before their glorious sun will darken the earth as long as I please.”
Lost in translation any of this? Boo. I am being unnecessarily facetious. But it’s not a malign tendency. And the great thing about music – as indeed also, see above, clouds – is things very rarely are lost in translation. So, I wouldn’t have a clue if all this was spoken word in Slovenian, Swedish and German but do get it when the language is avant jazz.
The intrepid three don’t need words so bypass that difficulty entirely. But they do tough love however veiled the impersonation given the tenderness that’s something of an iron fist [the punkish maelstrom of the drum line] in a velvet glove [the magical realism of the piano lines]. Controversially they actually do at least in part resort to melody in a feat of no small harmonic and rhythmical prestidigitation kept artfully under wraps. Because there are – listen hard – melodic stretches on ‘MariaTorget 87’ credited to Eldh and apart from the outlier that is the old Swedish hymn my favourite track.
Eldh was “discovered” by Django Bates and belonged Gollum like “his precious” to the Beckenham genius – exiled to the land of the Toblerone these past years – in Django’s wonderful Bird loving trio, Belovèd.
I read somewhere unreliable but which paradoxically seemed credible that the title refers to the atmosphere of Stockholm’s Mariatorget square back in the 80s. Let’s hope it’s not fiction. Eldh seems fairly roused by thoughts of whatever it is that inspires him.
PVP’s heyday was before Lockdown
Looky, looky: above they play Berlin in 2017 three blessed years before anyone even began to think about wet markets in Wuhan – let alone look up the place on Google Maps
No strangers to the very serious Swiss hardcore avant and free improv loving jazz gnomes of Zurich, Intakt – earlier albums of this imaginative trio’s where their story began – are Punkt.Vrt.Plastik (2018) and Somit (2021), as well as their live recording Zurich Concert (2022) – one the take the zug to, clearly. No leaves on the track there. Or worse, going all Nobbsian for a minute “twenty-two minutes late, badger ate a junction box at New Malden.”
Quite. But pianist Kaja Draksler is quite brilliant at doing disquiet setting the piano lines up pervasively on Kompress – a German word meaning compressed or closely packed. Think Kris Davis or Alexander Hawkins as kindred spirits. This is better than AH’s nevertheless decent one for the cellar, No Nation But Imagination, methinks. While on drums Christian Lillinger reminds one of the admirably wonky style of cult avantist Jim Black.
Surprises? Yes. Fellow muppets, there are some. Just who would have predicted that a hymn or what sounds very much like one would pop up – let’s go hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy for a minute to try to say out loud ‘När världens hopp förtvinat stod.’
Oh to be a polyglot. But instead puzzled I looked it up and found that it translates to English as: “When the hope of the world stood withered.” A hymn it turns out indeed – the language archaic Swedish. There is no lyric obvs as this is an instrumentals only album but it reverts to a traditional Swedish Christian hymn written by Samuel Johan Hedborn in 1813. I found an orchestrated version of it online shared at the top of this review.
Needless to say the only thing in common with that version by Swedes the Östergötlands Sinfonietta is the melody which then PVP drive a horse and cart through in not at all destructive fashion. Reader if you listen to both versions back to back you will realise instantly and relatively simply how futuristic Punkt Vrt. Plastik are without being at all performative.
Innovation is the name of the game and it’s a game these intuitive Europeans know experly well.