PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE - Time Sound Shape

Released at the end of 2022, “Time Sound Shape” is the first recording by the newly formed trio of Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, alto flute, Bb clarinet), Kalle Moberg (accordion) and Paal Nilssen-Love (Paiste gongs). Although the three musicians have known one another for years (the seventy-five-year-old Gjerstad and the fifty-year-old Nilssen-Love practically forever, while Moberg recently joined the Large Unit orchestra), this is the first time they have recorded in a lineup this stripped down.

To underline the intimacy of the situation, and the uniqueness of the occasion, the acrobatic Norwegian drummer chose to play only a handful of percussion: it is indeed his "prepared" gongs that decisively shape the forty-nine minutes of the long improvisation at the heart of the tracklist.

For most of its duration the music flows slowly, following the polychrome ripples of Gjerstad's saxophone, flute or clarinet and Moberg's accordion. Almost liturgical passages, in which the three musicians seem to be following the rites of some ancient religion, alternate with moments of pure free improvisation, where the winds are free to converse unrestrainedly with the gongs, struck in these sections with sticks as if they were ride or crash cymbals.

Time begins to flow following the pauses in the music, while space is defined by the movement of sound. The album was recorded on 10 May 2021 inside the Old Church of Aker, in Oslo, a place with spectacular acoustics, enhanced by its Romanesque structure – a three-aisled basilica without a transept – and by the limestone nature of the stone used in its construction.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

27/04/2023