Mette Hancok

After Mette Henriette’s critically acclaimed, self-titled first recording comes Drifting – and album pervaded by trio conversations of idiosyncratic and original expression. With Johan Lindvall returning on piano, new addition Judith Hamann on cello and herself on saxophone, Mette’s chamber musical elaborations prove of a concentrated and exploratory quality, marked by subtle yet intense interaction. Motifs and recurring patterns crystallize and reveal a concise, intricate narrative. The saxophonist-composer explains how “this album is in movement. It’s on its way somewhere and has its own pace – its creative agency is fundamentally different from what I’ve done previously.” Recorded in Oslo, completed in Studios La Buissonne and produced by Manfred Eicher, Drifting presents the trio’s deep investigations into hushed textures and rich tones with precision and clarity.

The untitled ECM double-album debut of young Norwegian saxophonist, composer and improviser Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg is an arrestingly original musical statement. ‘Jazz’ players and ‘classical’ players are drawn together in her ensembles, but the music shapes its own world, outside genre definitions. Mette Henriette is interlacing form and freedom in fresh ways here, as her intense and focused tenor saxophone sound moves inside compositions of sometimes disarming fragility. In this music, vulnerability can be as potent a force as full-tilt blowing, but there is a place for both. The recording’s expressive and emotional range is wide. Disc one here features trio music with Mette Henriette, pianist Johan Lindvall and cellist Katrine Schiøtt. Disc two has Mette’s “sinfonietta” with thirteen players.