Showing posts with label JAZZLAND RECORDINGS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JAZZLAND RECORDINGS. Show all posts

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Ellen Andrea Wang - Blank Out (JAZZLAND RECORDINGS 2017)


Three years after her critically acclaimed debut, "Diving" (2014), Ellen Andrea Wang returns with "Blank Out" on Jazzland Recordings.

Her accompanists on this sonic adventure are Erland Dahlen (drums) and Andreas Ulvo (Keyboards), while Wang provides vocals, bass and some keys. The music that pours out of this trio is eclectic, fearlessly dipping into different pools of genre to create a potent sound cocktail that moves between minimalist-inflected jazz funk pop (acid jazz meets Haim), Nordic atmospherics (insert Nordic ECM album of choice),  70s singer-songwriter (think Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones), and hip-hop (moving in an Outkast direction). Wang's vocals are pure, clean, and expressive, and are in total contrast to some of the down-and-dirty basslines she conjures, while Dahlen and Ulvo weave a sonic tapestry that never puts a note, beat or texture wrong. A key example is the lead single "Change of Heart" a song that is bubbling over with Erlend Dahlen's driving drums and Wang's own grooving bass topped with Andreas Ulvo's chattering electric piano lines, and crystalline synths and pads. It bristles with an energetic optimism, perfect for long summer evenings and soundtracking memories.

Another key contributor to the album is Martin Hagfors, a singer, guitarist and songwriter (who has worked with The National Bank, Motorpsycho, Jaga Jazzist and countless others). Here he contributes the lion's share of the lyric credits, as well as providing a spoken word performance on the track "Peace Prize".

Ellen Andrea Wang has contributed to many Norwegian scene projects, and has received critical acclaim for her own solo debut, "Diving" (2014) and genre-bending band, Pixel. In addition, she has worked with the likes of Sting, Manu Katché, and Marilyn Mazur.

"A commanding presence in any ensemble she plays in, her soft tone and vocal precision are always counterbalanced with heavy and assertive grooves from her double-bass, interlocking with drummers, jazz, pop and groove alike." -The Guardian


01. Peace Prize 06:09
02. Bad Blood 02:51
03. A Change of Heart 04:18
04. Heaven 05:30
05. Electric 03:43
06. Feelings 05:16
07. Accord De Paris 06:12

Artwork [Album Artwork] – Thor Johannes Wang
Backing Vocals – Mike Hartung (tracks: 3, 6)
Double Bass, Vocals – Ellen Andrea Wang
Drums, Percussion – Erland Dahlen
Electric Piano [Rhodes] – Ellen Andrea Wang (tracks: 5)
Engineer [Recording Engineer (Propeller Music Division)], Engineer [Mixing Engineer] – Mike Hartung
Grand Piano, Synth, Electric Piano [Rhodes], Electric Piano [Wurlitzer] – Andreas Ulvo
Mastered By [Mastering] – Morgan Nicolaysen
Music By [All Music Written By], Arranged By [All Music Arranged By], Producer [All Music Produced By] – Ellen Andrea Wang
Photography By – Solveig Wang
Recorded By [Additional Recording By] – Martin Hagfors
Voice [Spoken Word] – Martin Hagfors (tracks: 1)

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Megalodon Collective - Animals (JAZZLAND RECORDINGS 2017)



Perhaps Megalodon Collective's description of themselves is the most straightforward ... "sixty feet of prehistoric terror".

Yet that doesn't quite capture what this Norwegian Grammy-nominated septet unleashes upon the world. Their compositions and improvisations build with slow majesty and release a fiery rain of sonic chaos. Contrapuntal insanity creates illusions of order, while high urgency solos and lizard rhythms create illusions of disorder. They seamlessly leap from sounding like the Mingus Dynasty band trapped on a star cruiser with controls set for the heart of the sun to the pit orchestra from hell performing the soundtrack to a Keystone Cops movie directed by Quentin Tarantino.

This is traditional jazz with some non-western inflections in a bubbling broth of mercurial whimsy, tungsten-hard swing, gear-grinding factory noise, decimated funk, a stilt-walking Samba band parading through a burning free jazz session, extended musical techniques that mere mortals fear to play or hear, interstellar Dixieland cakewalking through a psychedelic reimagining of 1950s Chicago, and an exquisitely beautiful and delicate cacophony. Moments of tenderness, sweet melody and placid contemplation suddenly dissipate, and the band become a troupe of mediæval minstrels running across a bed of hot coals to joyously leap into the Nietzschean abyss.

Theirs is a whirling cabaret of lightning and brimstone, cascading diamonds and crumbling bedrock. They are incomprehensibly familiar and understandably alien; they elude description and categorization like a mythic lake monster ... So ...

Perhaps they were right to begin with: Megalodon Collective are, indeed, "sixty feet of prehistoric terror"!


01. Animals
02. Plutonia
03. Rasande Roland
04. När Blev Du Så Gammal (Och Ful)
05. Encouraging Dylan
06. Daymare
07. Moby
08. Intro
09. Finding Megalodon
10. Black Bike
11. Tree Of Redemption
12. On The Beach
13. Black Bear Creek

Based in Trondheim, Megalodon Collective are: