EIVIND OPSVIK - Overseas V
Loyal Label: LLCD020
Brandon Seabrook: electric guitar; Jacob Sacks: piano, rmi rock-si-chord organ; Kenny Wollesen: drums, percussion, rhythm ace drum machine, hand claps; Tony Malaby: tenor saxophone; Eivind Opsvik: double bass, analog bass synthesizer, oberheim drum machine, hand claps.
Recorded 20th June 2016 Sear Sound Studio, New York.
I like the fact that ‘hand claps’ are credited as an instrument here. Opsvik, in the liner notes, says “I think modern jazz can get a bit too serious and intellectual at times – so whether its catchy tunes or a music video, I think it can lighten up.”
This is a most welcome addition to Opsvik’s ‘Overseas’ series and continues his exploration of the collision between jazz and what you might call ‘art rock’. It is fitting that the recording was made at Sear Sound, which has hosted Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, John Zorn and David Bowie. It also feels that this CD could only have been made in New York, the city that the ex-pat Norwegian has made his home since the start of this millennium, because of the debt that it owes to the sort of bands playing in clubs like CBGBs in the late 70s and early 80s. The pieces have the stuttering guitar, electric drum sounds, and funk-heavy basslines of that era, building each piece on solid rhythmic foundations.
To situate this music in a tradition, there are echoes of the ways in which bands like Prime Time refracted funk through a jazz lens, or bands like King Crimson refracted jazz through a rock lens. However, what Opsvik has been doing on this and his previous ‘Overseas’ recordings is to tear up any ‘rule-book’ and create a very personal sound. The simplicity of the rhythms are challenged by the guitar and saxophone solos, which retain a taught and jazzy edge, but underlying all of this is a set of simple, catchy tunes which are often first presented by piano and then dismantled over the course of each piece. The band has been together for many years, and plays a lot on the road. You can sense how each of the pieces here has been reined in for the space allotted to it on the CD, and that live they could begin to really expand. Then, just as you’ve grown accustomed to the mix of art-rock and alt-funk, track 5, ‘Cozy little nightmare’, begins with a disjointed piano solo that has echoes of Duke Ellington before lapsing into a shimmering drum solo, and track 7, ‘Shoppers and pickpockets’, is almost all introduction to a piano solo that threatens to build from the lovely choice of minor chords that are played over the looping background before the tenor sax prowls in with a Scandinavian nonchalance and a reverb heavy presentation of the theme.
This is definitely one of my favourite albums so far this year.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Loyal Label: LLCD020
Brandon Seabrook: electric guitar; Jacob Sacks: piano, rmi rock-si-chord organ; Kenny Wollesen: drums, percussion, rhythm ace drum machine, hand claps; Tony Malaby: tenor saxophone; Eivind Opsvik: double bass, analog bass synthesizer, oberheim drum machine, hand claps.
Recorded 20th June 2016 Sear Sound Studio, New York.
I like the fact that ‘hand claps’ are credited as an instrument here. Opsvik, in the liner notes, says “I think modern jazz can get a bit too serious and intellectual at times – so whether its catchy tunes or a music video, I think it can lighten up.”
This is a most welcome addition to Opsvik’s ‘Overseas’ series and continues his exploration of the collision between jazz and what you might call ‘art rock’. It is fitting that the recording was made at Sear Sound, which has hosted Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, John Zorn and David Bowie. It also feels that this CD could only have been made in New York, the city that the ex-pat Norwegian has made his home since the start of this millennium, because of the debt that it owes to the sort of bands playing in clubs like CBGBs in the late 70s and early 80s. The pieces have the stuttering guitar, electric drum sounds, and funk-heavy basslines of that era, building each piece on solid rhythmic foundations.
To situate this music in a tradition, there are echoes of the ways in which bands like Prime Time refracted funk through a jazz lens, or bands like King Crimson refracted jazz through a rock lens. However, what Opsvik has been doing on this and his previous ‘Overseas’ recordings is to tear up any ‘rule-book’ and create a very personal sound. The simplicity of the rhythms are challenged by the guitar and saxophone solos, which retain a taught and jazzy edge, but underlying all of this is a set of simple, catchy tunes which are often first presented by piano and then dismantled over the course of each piece. The band has been together for many years, and plays a lot on the road. You can sense how each of the pieces here has been reined in for the space allotted to it on the CD, and that live they could begin to really expand. Then, just as you’ve grown accustomed to the mix of art-rock and alt-funk, track 5, ‘Cozy little nightmare’, begins with a disjointed piano solo that has echoes of Duke Ellington before lapsing into a shimmering drum solo, and track 7, ‘Shoppers and pickpockets’, is almost all introduction to a piano solo that threatens to build from the lovely choice of minor chords that are played over the looping background before the tenor sax prowls in with a Scandinavian nonchalance and a reverb heavy presentation of the theme.
This is definitely one of my favourite albums so far this year.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
