Jarrett Garbarek Christensen Brueninghaus

Outstanding folk-jazz album. I think this is my favourite Garbarek album; it is tightly-focused, composed and performed. The whole album evokes life in the northwoods and carries a real outdoors feel. The best tracks are Molde 4, His Eyes Were Suns, and the title track, but each cut is interesting and moving. My only complaint is that the production is somewhat suspect. I find myself needing to adjust the volume constantly – either the sax is too loud or the background too quiet. I own the original CD, though, not the remaster. Maybe the remaster is normalized a little better.

Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek took several intriguing stylistic turns early in his career, none more extreme than that shown on Triptykon. While he had always shown an affinity for the work of Albert Ayler and other free jazz musicians who came of age in the '60s, his prior albums retained a more straight-ahead rhythmic drive and more than a passing nod to experimental rock and fusion. Here, he jettisoned guitarist Terje Rypdal and replaced the sometimes overly delicate percussion work of Jon Christensen with the more earthy and heavy sounding Edward Vesala. The result is an expressionist trio drawing on both free improvisation and Scandinavian folk tunes, roaring, stumbling, and reeling, evoking an aural equivalent of Edvard Munch.