Worth hearing Paper Trio on their Hippo Road (TIME SPAN RECORDS TSRCD202406) album for the vocal free-form brincillations and mormatoons of Randi Pontoppidan, the Danish improviser who has produced some excellent collaborations over the years and never fails to bring depth, emotion, and honesty to her utterances. She generates a very modern form of abstract scat-singing that is unique. The rest of the album is very ordinary jazz and improv moves from fellow Dane Thomas Agergaard on woodwinds, and Greg Cohen (Berlin and Los Angeles) on double bass.
It seems the trio had to incorporate “paper” into their music in some way in order to get a gig at the Paper Museum in Denmark, and they succeeded so well that they recorded this later studio session, also using paper. It’s not entirely clear how paper was used – in my clumsy way, I’d assume inserting sheets of paper into the strings of the bass might be one approach, like a prepared piano, but I’m probably way off the mark. Sounds of paper stampers and paper-fabricating machines may have surfaced at the live gig, but not so much on this record which seems to be all-acoustic. (15/10/2024)