Back when fringe jazz bassist/bandleader Ingebrigt Håker Flaten was plying his trade in Chicago for a few years, he formed a free-jazz ensemble with a couple of the town’s best fast-risers of the local improvised music scene, saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Frank Rosaly. The Outskirts, as they named themselves, soon found work in clubs that showcased that scene’s best talent.
The Outskirts petered out after just a few years, however, due to Flaten decamping from Chicago, and though at least two of the three invariably got together to play over the years, they were limited to occasional tours. More recently, there’s been a desire to reconvene this band, however, and so Rempis, Flaten and Rosaly made it happen, traveling across Europe pushing their chops and instincts to the limit. Orbital (April 17 2026, Aerophonic Records) is a souvenir from that 2025 tour and belatedly, the first actual release from The Outskirts.
The Outskirts is already a pretty fearless group but then Rempis thickened the plot by contributing songs for the group to play; composing is something he’s conscientiously avoided for the past dozen years. This is still a band of musicians where improvisation runs through their veins, and you’re not going to take that away from them. No one understands that better than Rempis, the man who wrote these songs has generally shunned composing for over a decade prior to contributing these charts precisely because of a fundamental belief in the emancipation that total improvisation affords. For Orbital, he gets to have that freedom and democracy, anyway.
The first disc of this double-disc release contains of extended performances of a show in Pedona, Italy. “Four Feet of Slush – Glass Part 2” clocks in at thirty-seven minutes and this isn’t even the longest track. There are no wasted moments here, the driving swing makes the minutes melt away and Rempis voracious sax is an endless well of fresh phrasing. He and Rosaly take a breather while Flaten offers up his own casting of Rempis’ melody. When they return, the feel is looser and diffused as the trio collectively lets intuition take over completely, eventually leading into a sharp, fast bop tempo to end the performance.
Flaten is put on equal footing with Rempis for “Cascades,” and for a good bit of it, the song centers the interaction between the two, which is quite melodic. As Rosaly’s presence increases, the others adapt their diction to the emerging percussion.
“Strafe – Glass Part 1” is nearly straight-up bebop, with a hard swing and Flaten’s bass walking with some swagger. Rempis shoots out notes with the density of a paint sprayer, leaving no dry spots and also doing it with purpose.
Things gets particularly interesting on Disc 2 of this collection — recorded a week and a half earlier in Antwerp — because of the temporary addition of pianist Marta Warelis. A member of Flaten’s daring experimental jazz ensemble (Exit) Knarr, Amsterdam-based Warelis is a serious up-and-comer in the European improvised music space.
“Spherical Harmonics” is a test of stamina, an all-out fusillade of free-form activity, finally settling down more than eight minutes in and gradually building back up. Contending with three strong voices, Warelis more than holds her ground, locating the nooks and crannies in this thick sonic stew and burrowing in. Following a virtual duet between Rempis and Flaten whereby the later bows his bass to resemble a second sax, Warelis spreads her wings and uses unpredictable but exciting modes of expression. “Angular Momentum” begins as a slow, twenty-minute buildup, until the quartet blows the top off. Telepathically, they wind the song back down together, diminishing the viscosity in discreet steps.
Whether in trio or momentary quartet, Orbital provides proof that The Outskirts reunion was well justified. Not many people heard the old magic of the original time Dave Rempis, Frank Rosaly and Ingebrigt Håker Flaten played together but I’m willing to bet that they recaptured it.
Pre-order/order Orbital from Bandcamp.
- The Outskirts – ‘Orbital’ (2026) - April 15, 2026
- Ryan Blotnick – ‘The Woods’ (2026) - April 8, 2026
- Joseph Branciforte & Jozef Dumoulin – ‘ITERAE’ (2026) - April 7, 2026
