PER ODDVAR JOHANSEN - The Quiet Cormorant
Losen: LOS237-2
Per Oddvar Johansen: drums, vibraphone; Torven Snekkestad: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet; Helge Lien: piano; Hedvig Mollestad: guitar
Recorded 3rd and 4th July 2017 by Jan Erik Kongshaug at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
In her liner notes, Fiona Talkington says that Johansen describes Lien’s playing as ‘incorporating a Norwegian sound’. The melodies are gentle drawn out, as if each note has been carefully considered before it is released. Johansen’s percussion (he plays what sounds like a small kit but extracts all manner of sounds from it) is less a rhythmic accompaniment than the sounds of nature that swirl around the seaside. Piano and saxes create a music that has an intimacy but also some sense of place. Just as you get used to the gentleness of the music washing over you from the first four pieces, ‘Island Movies’ (track 5) shifts tempo (albeit to a slightly faster ballad with rolling saxophone). Then, on track 6, ‘Love, peace and currywurst’, Mollestad’s rocking guitar and solid bass clarinet lines jolt the listener further, even as the piece moves in and out of an ambient groove into belting guitar. Bass clarinet carries the melody on ‘The Still’, track 7, before the set drifts into quieter mood on the last two tracks.
The liner notes speak of the solitude in which Johansen composed much of this album; secluded in a house, ‘The Arctic Hideaway’, on the coast in northern Norway with just the flora and fauna for company. In addition to conveying the tranquillity of the surrounding scenery, the title track, which opens the set, also has the meditative qualities that characterise many of the tunes here.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Losen: LOS237-2
Per Oddvar Johansen: drums, vibraphone; Torven Snekkestad: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet; Helge Lien: piano; Hedvig Mollestad: guitar
Recorded 3rd and 4th July 2017 by Jan Erik Kongshaug at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
In her liner notes, Fiona Talkington says that Johansen describes Lien’s playing as ‘incorporating a Norwegian sound’. The melodies are gentle drawn out, as if each note has been carefully considered before it is released. Johansen’s percussion (he plays what sounds like a small kit but extracts all manner of sounds from it) is less a rhythmic accompaniment than the sounds of nature that swirl around the seaside. Piano and saxes create a music that has an intimacy but also some sense of place. Just as you get used to the gentleness of the music washing over you from the first four pieces, ‘Island Movies’ (track 5) shifts tempo (albeit to a slightly faster ballad with rolling saxophone). Then, on track 6, ‘Love, peace and currywurst’, Mollestad’s rocking guitar and solid bass clarinet lines jolt the listener further, even as the piece moves in and out of an ambient groove into belting guitar. Bass clarinet carries the melody on ‘The Still’, track 7, before the set drifts into quieter mood on the last two tracks.
The liner notes speak of the solitude in which Johansen composed much of this album; secluded in a house, ‘The Arctic Hideaway’, on the coast in northern Norway with just the flora and fauna for company. In addition to conveying the tranquillity of the surrounding scenery, the title track, which opens the set, also has the meditative qualities that characterise many of the tunes here.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
