Search - Arild Andersen :: Hyperborean

Bass playing of great warmth and emotion

10/30/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"  Arild Andersen- Hyperborean (ECM 1631) A very under rated bass player if ever there was one. Think of great bass players and names like Eberhard Weber &Jaco Pastorius spring immediately to my mind but most people when you mention Andersen will go "huh?".Past credits have included an album of Norwegian folk music entitled Sagn, recorded in 1990 as well as an album with Ralph Towner, Nana Vasconcelos and Audun Kleive (drummer with Terje Rypdal) entitled If You Look Far Enough. His band Masqualero has also recorded on the ECM label. With Hyperborean you again get this immediate sense of Nordic music of a very high standard, though I believe it was Andersen's intention to prove that there is more to Nordic music than say someone like Garbarek. But it's hard not to think of great Nordic gods like Terje Rypdal and Jan Garbarek when you hear this. The music contained here (like a lot of the ECM catalog) is mesmerising, expressionistic and film like in content.This is something that seems to be coming up time and time again and makes me wonder which direction Manfred Eicher is heading in. Still have no doubt, the man still has great vision and clarity and this is obvious in yet another great recording. Andersen's style recollects another great ECM player, one sadly not as prolific as he used to be in his musical outpourings- Eberhard Weber. Similar styles, that rounded way of playing the notes as well as the inclusion of strings to give the music a sense of space and lightness. Lovely stuff. It would have been great to hear someone like Rypdal on this, as well as David Darling, but on it's own it stands the test of time, basically that of repeated listenings. Most of the tracks were commissioned by the Norwegian Molde Festival back in 1995. Listening to it time and time again as of late, I can't help but think that Norwegian music per se owes a lot to musicians like Garbarek and Rypdal, who have in ways educated us all to this particular style of world music / jazz. On this recording Andersen employs a string quartet as well as pianist Kenneth Knudsen , himself known for his work with large scale orchestras. What you end up with is an album of accessible jazz that is at times sparse and cold and other times full of the joy of life. Strong melodies, great arrangements and another reason for exploring the ECM label in more detail."

Fine Scandinavian Chamber Jazz

07/25/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Arild Andersen here offers a worthy addition to the ECM catalog, upholding its standards for intelligent, richly-textured, chamber jazz. Andersen has played free jazz in the tradition of Ornette Coleman, strongly folk-influenced music, and mainstream jazz. On this cd, he joins with a string quartet to create mostly introspective, "moody" pieces, some apparently through-composed and others improvised. He is highly-skilled, as are his collaborators. The sound is, typically for ECM, immaculate."