SVERRE GJORVAD - Elegy Of Skies
Losen: LOS247-2
Herborg Rundberg: piano, pump organ, drum; Kristian Svalestad Olstad: guitars, drum; Dag Okstad: bass, drum; Sverre Gjorvad: drums, voice; Joakim Milder: tenor saxophone
Recorded 1st – 3rd July 2020 by Kristian Svalestad Olstad at Kysten Studios, Tromso, Norway.
This set reunites the quartet from 2019’s ‘Voi River’. Giorvad presents a collection of atmospheric meditations on the scenery and skies of northern Norway. ‘Elegy of skies’, track 2 and 9, have a mournful lyricism with a tune that came to Giorvad in his sleep (‘I sang it into my telephone and went back to sleep.’) And this sense of a liminal space between waking and dreaming occurs in other tunes. The opening track, ‘An amorphic balloon’, combines a slowly unfolding sequence of dreamy chords with snatches of spoken word that are so low in the mix that you need to strain to pick up on them and arco bass and drawn-out guitar notes. But Giorvad’s music isn’t solely a matter of the slow and atmospheric, but can also, as in ‘Rein’, track 3, (inspired by the clumsiness of walking reindeer) or ‘The Wife Waltzes too’, track 5, can move into lighter modes (although both slip into the elegeic). In ‘Fire’, track 4, a pattern with child-like simplicity is repeated and then developed first on piano and then in a bass, piano, guitar trio, heavy on the country twang.
As with ‘Voi River’Gjorvad also adds a pop song. On this set, the pop song is Prefab Sprout’s ‘Mercy’ (track 8) which calls on Milder for a soothing ballad. What I like about Gjorvad’s way with pop songs is how his love of the tune helps him turn these into contemporary ‘classics’, as if they have always been part of the jazz canon. This is song I know quite well and I like the way the arrangement takes the tune and peels it away from the lyrics so that the notes stand by themselves and create their own melancholy atmosphere. This is trick that he played with ‘Here comes the sun’ on the previous album and, when you think how much we associate pop songs with their lyrics, you realise this is not as easy thing to pull off.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Losen: LOS247-2
Herborg Rundberg: piano, pump organ, drum; Kristian Svalestad Olstad: guitars, drum; Dag Okstad: bass, drum; Sverre Gjorvad: drums, voice; Joakim Milder: tenor saxophone
Recorded 1st – 3rd July 2020 by Kristian Svalestad Olstad at Kysten Studios, Tromso, Norway.
This set reunites the quartet from 2019’s ‘Voi River’. Giorvad presents a collection of atmospheric meditations on the scenery and skies of northern Norway. ‘Elegy of skies’, track 2 and 9, have a mournful lyricism with a tune that came to Giorvad in his sleep (‘I sang it into my telephone and went back to sleep.’) And this sense of a liminal space between waking and dreaming occurs in other tunes. The opening track, ‘An amorphic balloon’, combines a slowly unfolding sequence of dreamy chords with snatches of spoken word that are so low in the mix that you need to strain to pick up on them and arco bass and drawn-out guitar notes. But Giorvad’s music isn’t solely a matter of the slow and atmospheric, but can also, as in ‘Rein’, track 3, (inspired by the clumsiness of walking reindeer) or ‘The Wife Waltzes too’, track 5, can move into lighter modes (although both slip into the elegeic). In ‘Fire’, track 4, a pattern with child-like simplicity is repeated and then developed first on piano and then in a bass, piano, guitar trio, heavy on the country twang.
As with ‘Voi River’Gjorvad also adds a pop song. On this set, the pop song is Prefab Sprout’s ‘Mercy’ (track 8) which calls on Milder for a soothing ballad. What I like about Gjorvad’s way with pop songs is how his love of the tune helps him turn these into contemporary ‘classics’, as if they have always been part of the jazz canon. This is song I know quite well and I like the way the arrangement takes the tune and peels it away from the lyrics so that the notes stand by themselves and create their own melancholy atmosphere. This is trick that he played with ‘Here comes the sun’ on the previous album and, when you think how much we associate pop songs with their lyrics, you realise this is not as easy thing to pull off.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
