feature photo: Antonio Baiano
Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset had made his mark more than two decades ago re-imagining the guitar as a conduit for alternative intonations. That’s why he’s been a fantastic complement in his session work for like-minded sonic pioneers like Jon Hassell and Nils Petter Molvær.
Aarset was one of the forward-thinking Scandinavians alongside Molvær leading jazz into an electro-acoustic direction in the late 90s and aughts with albums like Electronique Noire, Light Extracts and Sonic Codex, all from fellow trailblazer Bugge Wesseltoft‘s Jazzland label. On these records, Aarset has established himself as a premiere sonic architect with chops to match — much like David Torn — but also like Torn his sonic architecture is entirely his own. After a stint with the prestigious ECM imprint, Aarset has returned to Jazzland Recordings with all of that ‘new jazz’ mojo intact.
Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey is a balanced blend of textures, harmony and musicianship, working together in perfect partnership. The fresh ideas Aarset helped to advance as the 20th century drew to a close are sounding as fresh more than twenty years into the next century and he’s got his 4tet band helping to make it happen. Wetle Holte and Erland Dahlenb handle drums and various other percussion while Audun Erlien plays bass. All the music made here is made collectively, with little or no forethought. Which is astonishing, because the music always knows where it’s going with a narrative flow to it and often richly melodic.
“Intoxication” starts out with Aarset alone, which is entirely appropriate for isolating how he can manipulate tones, splaying out a fully-realized sound construct out of only his guitar before the rest of the band enters to this lumbering beast of a song. “Inbound” is another song with a foreboding start, snowballing into a frenzy and cresting with Aarset’s overdriven guitar.
The mesmerizing pulse of “Pearl Hunter” is complemented by electronic arrows shooting across the sonic sky. The late entry of drums brings the proceedings up to a resolution that takes things to the next level.
The rhythm section gets going right away for “Outbound (or) Stubbl,” with circuit-bent and fuzz guitar sounds screaming and swirling around. It’s post-rock at its finest. Erlien’s bass is a key harmonic component for “Duløc (or) The Cat’s Eye,” a song that takes its time developing but the journey is the reward because it’s episodic and almost cinematic in its movement.
The quartet is bolstered for a few performances by key guest turns. The first is Arve Henriksen’s atmospheric trumpet as a perfect addition to “Manta Ray [or] Soft Spot,” which is built on a lush, two-chord sequence that suddenly takes a brighter, tropical turn for its bridge. Sampler specialist Jan Bang has been a frequent collaborator with Aarset and he adds additional texture to this track and “Didn’t See This Coming,” a straight-up groove buttressed by a wash of a synthetic milieu. Aarset’s nervous guitar is at its most aggressive here, a delicious alchemy of Nels Cline and Terje Rypdal.
“Light On Sanzu River [or] Dreaming Of A Boat” is a feathery, soft landing, an ear-caressing succession of ambient waves to which John Derek Bishop’s aerial electronic treatments adds further to that certain mood.
Today, there are a lot of practitioners of the electro-acoustic, rock-oriented style of jazz that once upon a time only Eivind Aarset and a handful of others were doing. But as Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey shows, there’s currently no one who’s doing it better than he does.
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