Experimental Norwegian jazz-rock trio Elephant9 just lately returned with newest album Legendary River. The band’s co-founders, bassist Nikolai Hængsle and keyboard participant Ståle Storløkken, reveal the enchantment of lengthy espresso breaks, collabs with Led Zep bassist John Paul Jones, and why three actually is the magic quantity.
Elephant9’s keyboardist Ståle Storløkken eagerly cites French twentieth century composer Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony, composed within the aftermath of World Conflict Two, as his favorite piece of music of all time. “No matter any style,” he emphasises. Nevertheless, he reveals there’s one other piece of music that exerted a really particular affect on his improvement as a younger participant.
“It’s effectively written, effectively performed and has a number of good sonic preparations,” he explains, including, “it was additionally when listening to this file the primary time that I made a decision I had to purchase a Hammond organ!” The album in query: ELP’s Tarkus.
Fashioned in 2006, Elephant9 have carved a particular path inside Norway’s vibrant music scene. Alongside Storløkken, drummer Torstein Lofthus and bassist Nikolai Hængsle full the trio who’ve simply launched their tenth album. Following the identical course charted on 2021’s Arrival Of The New Elders, Legendary River continues to discover a extremely articulate mix of jazz sensibilities framed via the prism of driving psych-tinted rock.
Thrumming bass, explosive drumming, acid-etched organ, overdriven electrical piano and dream-fever Mellotron are all channelled right into a sequence of well assembled instrumental numbers that includes considerate development and visceral grooves, which act as a platform for his or her charismatic, wild spontaneity.
Whereas some bands can discover it troublesome to adequately distil what they do reside or within the rehearsal room, this trio haven’t needed to fear in the case of nailing the appropriate take. “It’s usually fairly straightforward to file an album with Elephant9,” explains Lofthus, who can be a member of jazz-rock outfit Crimson Kite. “We have now good musical and private chemistry and principally agree on the place we’re going, so it’s nearly discovering the appropriate sound and capturing good musical moments on tape.”
Ever since 2008 debut album Dodovoodoo, the band have used a secret ingredient to assist the recording course of alongside, as Hængsle explains: “Lengthy espresso breaks have been an vital component. As quickly as we’ve nailed a sound we’re proud of, often focusing primarily on drums, and if we’ve additionally been good boys and practised a bit beforehand, then it’s all about efficiency and presence. In our case, a efficiency virtually by no means will get higher after two or three takes in a row; the one factor that works is a few extra espresso if we don’t really feel like we’re fully there but.”
Like their earlier album, the trio labored on Legendary River with Swedish producer and engineer Mattias Glavå – whose credit embody Dungen, Needlepoint, Greg Fort and others – at Kungsten Studios in Gothenburg. “We actually like how he makes us sound,” says Storløkken. “He has some insights which are actually helpful to us.”
Hængsle goes additional: “He’s most likely my favorite sound engineer on the planet as we speak. I get as excited as a toddler each time I get the chance to work with him at Kungsten. We felt that Mattias’ sonic contributions deserved co-producer credit score as soon as the album was completed. There’s nonetheless reserved power within the band, however with much more chew popping out of the audio system.”
Glavå was additionally current on 2015’s Silver Mountain, the second album they’d made with Dungen’s Reine Fiske, following on from the success of their joint debut, 2012’s Atlantis. Augmenting the trio each within the studio and in live performance, Fiske appeared with them once more on 2019’s Psychedelic Backfire II, pouring copious quantities of his six-string accelerant into the already flamable combine.
John Paul Jones is the sweetest, most well mannered man there may be… he additionally has this wonderful playfulness
Ståle Storløkken
Fiske’s presence added an entire new dimension to the group dynamic, based on Storløkken. “After we play as a trio, the sound and the interaction is a bit faster and open; and with Reine it’s extra advanced and wider since then there are two that may play melodic and harmonic stuff.”
Hængsle provides: “As a quartet we create a kaleidoscopic wall of sound the place Ståle and Reine’s frequencies intertwine – actually widescreen; and as a trio we grow to be a tighter unit in the case of dynamics and micro-rhythms.”
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The collaboration took place from a want to not merely keep it up repeating what had been a profitable recipe however to problem themselves and their means of working collectively. “This was in the summertime of 2011, and we’d already booked Atlantis, previously Metronome Studios, in Stockholm,” Hængsle explains. “Reine is considered one of my favorite guitarists. I’ve at all times been an enormous fan of Dungen; however once I nervously known as him neither of us knew one another personally. It turned out he knew our band and was a fan. He joined us on 4 tracks – and what you hear there may be actually our first assembly. A fully incredible musician.”
Elephant9 belong to a musical continuum that features teams as musically numerous as Motorpsycho, Hedvig Mollestad Trio, Dungen, Supersilent, Jaga Jazzist, Fireplace!, Crimson Kite, Bushman’s Revenge, Grand Normal, Møster and Splashgirl, amongst others. It’s not unusual for gamers in these teams to share file labels and cross-pollinate one another’s work. Storløkken collaborated with Motorpsycho on 2012’s The Loss of life Defying Unicorn and En Konsert For Folks Flest, launched in 2015.
“We wrote the music collectively and I did the preparations for the Trondheim Jazzorchestra,” says the keyboardist and composer. “Working with them was very nice and straightforward. Regardless that we’re on considerably completely different musical turf, all of us have a robust connection to the identical sort of music. All of us share the identical ardour for musical experimentation and we’re not sure to particular musical parameters or genres.”
That love of open boundaries is a key a part of Storløkken’s different musical enterprise, Supersilent. Typically hailed as a supergroup, in 2015 Ståle, Arve Henriksen (trumpet, electronics, drums, vocals), and Helge Sten, aka Deathprod (electronics), had been joined by ex-Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, who was a terrific admirer not solely of Supersilent however the Scandinavian jazz and improv scene as effectively.
“John Paul Jones is the sweetest, most well mannered man there may be. An actual gentleman,” Storløkken says. “He additionally has this wonderful playfulness and drive to make good music occur. It was actually fantastic working with him!”
I can really feel 100 per cent free with two musicians I like who can also really feel 100 per cent free
Nikolai Hængsle
Regardless of their willingness to function in different environments, all of them see Elephant9 as a big dedication. “For me, it’s a playground the place I could be as free as in Supersilent, however with a megaton-diesel-engine-rock-fuelling groove pushing us ahead,” Storløkken says. “And nothing can cease it! And in addition I just like the free strategy we now have to music, even when it’s form of rock primarily based.” Requested to sum up the group’s adventurous ethos in just some phrases, he provides: “Large. Exploring. Area journey.”
Seeking to the long run, they’ve recorded a collaborative album with Swedish guitar veteran and Scandi-jazz legend Terje Rypdal, scheduled for launch later within the 12 months. “Terje is very nice. He actually loved taking part in with us and vice versa,” says Storløkken.
Along with reside dates selling Legendary River, the band are branching out into the multimedia market. “We even have a live performance movie prepared for launch as soon as we discover the appropriate format and channel for distribution,” provides Lofthus.
Hængsle says: “We have now been taking part in collectively for nearly 20 years, and the shared musical instinct we now have constructed up – together with the truth that I can really feel 100 per cent free with two musicians I like who can also really feel 100 per cent free – is sort of particular.
“It’s most likely the one band I play in the place each member is actually irreplaceable. We by no means play with substitutes; and if somebody throws within the towel, the band is completed.”
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