Terje Rypdal
Vossabrygg

An unconventional musician, Terje Rypdal.

Norwegian, for years one of the prominent figures of the ECM label, he has followed their aesthetic and standards in an original way, melding a "hard" guitar sound with muffled, ecstatic, classical soundscapes. The taste for juxtaposing electric guitar with acoustic piano, or with a string quartet; a long series of albums that describe a very heterogeneous musical journey, from rock-influenced formations to the performance of full orchestral symphonies. A path not always fully focused, precisely due to multiple influences that are musically so distant from each other.

"Vossabrygg" perhaps represents a turning point in the guitarist's career, which on one hand returns to a sound that characterized his early works, and on the other, achieves a successful synthesis of the musical worlds he has expressed throughout his long career. The album is a recording of a live concert held at the Vossa festival, with Rypdal in the company of his closest and long-time collaborators: Palle Mikkelborg on trumpet, keyboardists Bugge Wesseltoft and Stale Storlokken, the trusty bassist Bjorn Kjellemyr, and drummers Jon Christensen and Paolo Vinaccia.

The opening track immediately shows us where Terje Rypdal intends to wander: we're in the electric Davis period, late '60s / early '70s. "Ghostdancing" appears as a variation on the theme of "Pharaoh's Dance", present in "Bitches Brew", with the pair of keyboardists weaving a foggy and magmatic sound carpet, illuminated by the leader's famous "slices of light" guitar. Then trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, one of Miles Davis's most faithful disciples, enters the scene, and the picture is complete... But Rypdal did not want to produce merely a derivative work. During the long concert, he explores different sound situations, lets his "nordicity" shine through, combined with a love for more visceral rock and psychedelia, presenting themes that are sometimes ecstatic and sometimes tense and nervous.

There is also room for hip-hop, with a series of turntables, samplers, and other electronic gadgets handled by his son Marius. Curiously, precisely in these "urban jungle" moments, the soloists bring out their happiest interventions, with Rypdal at his sharpest, showcasing a remarkable mastery of the instrument, alternating dizzying jazzy phrases with a happily rock use of the distortion and pedalboard. Mikkelborg's affected trumpet is always effective, and the two-person improvisation in tracks like "Incognito Traveller" leaves no escape.

The keyboard setup (Fender, electric organ) further reinforces the "seventies" atmosphere, even though more current synths are not shunned in atmospheric tracks ("Makes You Wonder", "That's More Like It"). The "call and response" between the two keyboardists is very enjoyable, everyone plays excellently and there's never a dull moment.

Ultimately an excellent album, interesting, engaging and entertaining, that may intrigue even an audience not strictly adhering to jazz, which might end up spinning for a long time in your CD player, and why not, also in your MP3 player.