The new album from this 15-year-old Scandinavian free-jazz quintet captures
their shrewdly varied take on both the paint-stripping and lyrical varieties of
free-improv very well. Drummer Hans Hulboekmo creditably replaces the
remarkable Paal Nilssen-Love, while the frontline chemistry of saxophonist
Fredrik Ljungkvist and trumpeter Magnus Broo exhibits its familiar volatility,
and pianist Håvard Wiik and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten steer a steadfast
course through the melee. Some pieces open with glistening piano meditations,
warmly harmonised, Cool School counterpoint or pure, long-tone trumpet figures,
then turn to collective-improv tussles and sharply punctuated group motifs;
elsewhere there are arco-bass scufflings and skimmings that become slow-march
murmurs; the title track is a hard-boppish swinger with a deliciously byzantine
melody and a string of taut solos; and A MacGuffin’s Tale is a fine vehicle for
Ljungkvist’s resourcefulness on clarinet. Free-jazz and old-school swing rarely
sound more compatible than they do here.