Jan Bang

Jazzland Recordings presents Canberk Ulaş's solo duduk album “Echoes of Becoming”, a captivating fusion of heritage and innovation. Prepare to be transported to a realm where ancient echoes meet contemporary expressions, and the boundaries of musical exploration are redefined.

Jan Garbarek's music can be summed up in one simple word: meditation. Sure, the term is loaded with overtones, both good and bad. But do not confuse meditation with mindlessness: they are polar opposites. Garbarek's thirty years with ECM (as a leader and collaborator) have yielded hundreds of melodies which lead to an infinitely light state of inner peace. It's hard to imagine a more positive statement for a saxophone player who long ago decided to forsake flash-and-bang for "simpler" music with understated spiritual energy. And this two-disc set does Garbarek justice. Each disc runs in chronological order from about 1975 through 1995.

The seventh album from Splashgirl, “More Human” is made in collaboration with singer/sound artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, and producer Randall Dunn. The album title, “More Human”, explores the role of humanity in a society increasingly reliant on technology, where artists face direct competition from artificial intelligence.

While there are still plenty of the signposts that make this an Eivind Aarset album, Sonic Codex represents some significant changes for a Norwegian artist who has become the most important (and in demand) guitarist to emerge from Scandinavia since Terje Rypdal in the early 1970s.

The music of Norwegian trumpeter/Nu Jazz progenitor, Nils Petter Molvaer, has always been cinematic. Call it music for a non-existent movie or a film of the mind, Molvaer's albums, beginning with the groundbreaking Khmer (ECM, 1997), have always been about aural landscapes evocative of highly personal imagery and plenty of club-ready grooves. Even in performance, the lighting provided by Tord "Prince of Darkness" Knudsen is intended to provoke the imagination rather than focus attention on the musicians. It's no surprise, then, that Molvaer has been recruited to provide music for film. His score for the 2005 French film Edy already saw limited release on Molvaer's Sula imprint the same year. Re-Vision culls four pieces from Edy and, by combining them with music from two other films—the 2007 German film Hoppet and 1999 Norwegian documentary Frozen Heart—and one non-soundtrack piece, fashions a continuous 46-minute suite that stands independently as yet another highly visual piece, incorporating Molvaer's ever-expanding frames of reference. Re-Vision is also Molvaer's first release in years to not primarily feature members of his touring band, but guitarist Eivind Aarset remains a fundamental part of its overall soundscape.

Out on 6 October, the music for Certainty of Tides was initially recorded with the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra with Nils Petter Molvaer as a soloist in 2020. He had asked several wonderful Norwegian composers to arrange a set of music from his back catalogue. “Have a listen to the recordings I did with the orchestra and tell me what you think” he told Norwegian composer, musician, and producer Jan Bang. Since the original recording was close mic’ed for broadcasting purposes, Bang saw an unfulfilled potential in the material due to lack of space in the initial recordings. Bang came up with the idea of re-amping the mixes playing the music through speakers in a concert house followed by re-recording of the result through distant microphones. With 76 speakers (one per instrument) carefully placed exactly like the orchestra would have been seated onstage, Certainty of Tides was recorded from microphones strategically placed in the large hall of Kilden Concert House with phenomenal acoustics.

Trumpeter Arve Henriksen's brand of contemporary improvised music could easily be compared to ECM labelmates Jon Hassell and Nils Petter Molvaer. Yet there are certain distinctions that separate the voodoo economic vistas of Hassell and the film noir style of Molvaer from the spacious, more organic sound that Henriksen has created on this recording, as the title suggests. Using the slightest of note clusters or phrases, Henriksen also surrounds himself with a certain yin-yang concept, where 180-degree polar opposites congeal without clashing.

Vibraphonist Mike Mainieri has never garnered the same attention as Gary Burton, five years his junior, despite being equally cutting edge. Mainieri was one of fusion's early progenitors: Journey Through an Electric Tube (Solid State, 1968) and White Elephant (Solid State, 1969) explored new ways to incorporate a rock aesthetic with jazz. But while Burton has settled into a more mainstream comfort zone in recent years, Mainieri continues to test new waters. Northern Lights teams him with the "Norwegian Posse"—a veritable who's who of the contemporary Norwegian scene. The result blends the groove and ambience of nu jazz with a somewhat more emphatic approach to soloing.