Most bands appreciate that the real musical magic happens onstage before an appreciative audience. That’s certainly the case for saxophonist Kjetil Møster who, having assembled an all-star cast from the cream of the Norwegian prog jazz scene, unleashes a series of fiery howling choruses and frantically tumultuous grooves.
Thrillingly flailing somewhere between crunching hairy 70s rock and beatific Coltrane-like rapture, it has the kind of cranked-up heavy-duty impact most Marshalled-up rock bands can only dream about. Peppered with eerie atmospherics, the music is anchored by the insistent Wetton-esque bass of Elephant 9’s Nikolai Eilertsen and the unstoppable barrage of Motorpsycho’s Kenneth Kapstad.
Composition Task #1 is a haunting, beautiful tenor sax solo whose nimbly etched golden tracery falls upon an amorphous canvas of dreamy reverb. Elsewhere, Møster’s roaring baritone is belligerent, recalling Van der Graaf Generator’s mournful windswept textures and the brusque hurtling thud of Morphine’s Dana Colley.
Supersilent’s Ståle Storløkken brings distorted keyboards that add a pungent lead foil. A white-knuckle ride of an album.
