METTE HENRIETTE - Drifting

To drift, to let oneself be carried along, without intention and without a predetermined destination: what matters is moving, sensing the naturalness, even the beauty, of this motion, since our destiny ultimately lies not in stillness. And if the sense of time is lost, all the better: who decreed that we must submit to its tyranny? It is hard to imagine what idea lies behind “Drifting”, the second album by Norwegian jazz musician Mette Henriette, arriving more than seven years after her debut. It is not said, after all, that there must be a specific theme organising the vignettes of the record, but there is certainly a momentum in the saxophonist's cross-genre curiosity, a sense of motion that, even stripped of thematic anchors, illustrates well the wandering nature of an art that is fluid, detached from specific contexts. Once again released by the venerable Ecm, the work pushes her research toward new expressive degrees.

In sharp contrast to the rich lineup employed on the debut (a double-river of over 95 minutes), with the new project Henriette leads a small ensemble of three musicians: alongside her saxophone, Johan Lindvall plays piano and Judith Hamann cello, an instrumental trio as unusual as it is endowed with a perfectly synchronised chamber-music impulse. The running time, too, rests on entirely different premises, favouring much shorter durations capable of conveying vivid, tangible impressions. Above all, what emerges is a sound that recalls the musician's jazz background yet shuns its trappings, striving to place itself in a non-place made of classical clarity, ambient escapes and improvisational sparks that take up the legacy of Third Stream.

Chamber-like attacks unfold like a train on its tracks; graceful piano figures repeat a rhythmic motif over which the saxophone sketches its fleeting inspirations (“I Villvind”). Barely hinted waltzing triplets suggest an intangible dance, the awakening of an existence in the act of wandering (“Chassé”). If the title track ventures “spiritual” hypotheses through the blossoming of Henriette's saxophone (here the exploratory spirit of fellow Norwegian Daniel Herskedal also joins in), “Oversoar” thins out every melodic premise, the cello forging its way through the fog with the severity of a Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Parisian memories (the sparks of Mammal Hands in “Rue de Renard”), snowy chamber meditations (“Indrifting You”), mysteries that surface with the poetic manner of a Satie (“Ciedda, fas”): Mette Henriette's art places itself at the service of a language so spare in its components, yet always in motion, capable of becoming one with the breath of nature. In the crackle of brushwood in the fire, in the slow emergence of the crescent moon, the trio led by the Norwegian becomes the voice of a patient wandering, detached from contingencies and urgencies, held by a sense of contemplation that invites only calm. Nothing more is needed to be enraptured.

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

10/03/2023