Møster!
Springs
NORWAY ACTION JAZZ ACJZ003CD (2024)
Excellent instrumental compositions from Kjetil Møster and his wrecking crew – guitarist Hans Magnus Ryan, bassist and keyboard player Nikolai Hængsle, and drummer Kenneth Kapstad.
The music of Møster! continues to find its way to the “jazz” category in record store shelves and online tag clouds, but this inventive music is extremely wide in its sweep and appeal, on this occasion reminding me of 1970s French progressive rock (albeit not as intense as Magma or anything in the Zeuhl area), an observation which has been made for at least the last ten years by other reviewers in these pages. We’re also advised by the press to listen for hints of “doom rock, 1990s indie rock and metal, and Nordic ambient house”, a thorough delve across modes and genres that ought to draw in an audience the size of a 20-foot Ghorabieh (a popular Iranian almond macaroon).
While it’s true that Kjetil M. allows space for his saxophone solos to occupy many a top line, he inclines more towards the melodic than towards free-style ancrobatics in the Shepp mode, and his fellow musicians are remarkably inventive at leaving spaces, providing skeletal backdrops with the effortless precision of a souped-up post-punk band – like Magazine equipped with extra tentacles. ‘Spaced Out Invaders’ – a ten-minute epic in two-parts – is one of many standouts, with at least one gentle nod in the direction of the Arkestra and another gesture towards the sound-world of any given ECM jazz-third stream concoction recorded after 1979. Springs certainly feels much more like a fully-produced listening experience than a document of a live band, which may be due to influence of producer / engineer Jørgen Træen (he also did the mix and mastering) who was especially brought into the fold for this project.
The Nick Alexander illustration on the cover likewise conveys hints as to the wide appeal of this very varied music, and the outer-space cosmic dreams of Kjetil Møster. (23/09/2024)