Nils Landgren & Esbjorn Svensson
Layers Of Light

Layers Of Light, STRATI DI LUCE, strange that it isn't here on DeB, ok I'll give it a try.

This is my first review, and it's scorching hot. Conversely, the album evokes distinctly winter atmospheres: it reminds me of snowy Nordic expanses and muffled silences, had I not already experienced it in the car going to the mountains early in the morning last winter...

I discovered it by chance due to my "completionist" mania when I get to know someone I really like, in this case, the late Esbjorn Svensson, who left us a year ago, and E.S.T., an experimental trio that I would dare to define as the Radiohead of jazz

Here Esbjorn is joined by the celebrated Nils Landgren aka Mr. Redhorn, another experimenter primarily in the funk field. So, trombone and piano. And that's it.

The basic concept is that all music has its roots in folklore, and that's why these two Swedes, after Chopin, Ellington, funk, and soul, return home to revisit what their mentor Bengt-Arne Wallin had imparted to them. John Coltrane, Jan Garbarek, and many others have done it; it's a natural path since jazz is world music in the fullest sense of the term.

Having said that, here we are talking about 58 minutes of absolute Beauty and Magic. I am reminded of the northern lights, endless forests, infinite sunsets, flashes of Nordic trips from a few years ago...the two instruments embrace in a refined elegance and the crystal-clear sound envelops everything like snow, or like a blanket as you warm yourself by the fire. Yes, because it's an intimate album, it's music that moves you, to be listened to in silence.

It's traditional music, of course, but it's arranged in a very modern way. There are only two original pieces: "Layers Of Light" by Svensson and "The Farewell" by Bengt-Arne Wallin. The twin album is "Swedish Folk Modern", also by this duo, released in 2004, which one will be compelled to buy if they greatly appreciate "Layers Of Light". On Folk Modern, worth mentioning is "Lapp-Nils Polska" which reappears at the end in a splendid live version.

Recommended listening for fans of Landgren and EST primarily, for those who believe in Trolls (!), and for everyone worn out by stress, which is practically everyone!