The many guises of Mats Gustafsson
The improviser has four new, radically disparate recordings out
The hard-hitting collective called the End recently released a typically heavy new album called How Do You Mourn (Trost) and it delivers the usual bill of goods: grinding, hard rock grooves meted out by drummer Bjørge Fordheim and guitarist/bassist Anders Hana, free blowing and noisy electronic improvisations and textures from Mats Gustafsson and Kjetil Møster, and sui generis vocals from the great Sofia Jernberg. It’s well-made, with each epic piece trundling its way through a variety of attacks and atmospheres. Yet the band has never connected with me, in part, because the quintet embraces a macho energy most of the time that squashes a lot of the most interesting action. I saw the band play in Bergen, Norway in the spring of 2022 and was let down by a lack of nuance and a leaden rhythmic crunch, but the recording brings out a lot of lovely details.
In particular there are a variety of remarkable passages featuring Jernberg, who is the not-so-secret raison d’être of the End. The vocalist imparts a tender ambiguity as the opening track “Snow” winds down, weaving the most delicate phrases within a portentous calm, and she intones a blues-tinged soliloquy alongside the gorgeous baritone saxophone of Gustafsson on “Wasted Blame.” The reedist moves over to flute for “Winter Doesn’t End”—check it out below—but as soon as that marvel of sensitivity fades away were pummeled by the sludgy attack of “Whose Face,” where the singer evokes a touch of Grace Slick, making clear that she could have cleaned-up if she was on the scene during the psychedelic 60s.
Gustafsson has been exceptionally prolific of late, recently dropping a three-album set by a 40-strong iteration of his Fire! Orchestra called Echoes (Rune Grammofon) in mid-April. The line-up is bonkers, with an incredible array of musicians from free jazz, new music, and experimental circles—which often overlap in real life—coming together to push the leader’s maximalist conception to the breaking point. For the most part it’s the core trio, with bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin as the armature onto which a massive array of horns and strings add harmonic depth (trombonist Mats Äleklint arranged the horns, while violinist Josefin Runsteen did so with the strings), sonic sinew, and contrapuntal riffing to what are generally simple forms. A number of pieces feature guest vocalists, such as “ECHOES: to gather it all. once,” a ballad featuring the ravishing voice of Mariam Wallentin, or “ECHOES: I see your eye, part 2,” where Joe McPhee reads some deadly hilarious hipster jive poetry.
Most of the material was composed collectively by the three members of the trio, clinging to an ostinato-driven ethos, which certainly makes it easier to write for such a massive ensemble. For the most part the musicians play cycling riffs and unison lines, basically adding heft and volume, but accents, solos, and asides are regular features throughout. But there are exceptions, such as the brief, meditative “Sliding Whisper of Pain”—an almost gauzy duet between the oboe of Per “Texas” Johansson and weirdly metallic berimbau clangs created by Juan Romero. “Nothing Astray, All Falling” is a particular marvel, a collision of eerie, sepulchral organ by Martin Hederos, donso n’goni by the great Christer Bothén, and angular strings, both bowed and plucked—listen below. Not long after we’re immersed in a post-On the Corner haze through an Organic Music Society lens.
I was a bit skeptical of the enormity of scale employed by Gustafsson here, but he succeeds far more often than not, tapping the possibilities and power of the expanded ensemble without drawing attention to it or flirting with big band language. There’s also a clear sense of contrast established from the outside, toggling between stripped-down passages and monolithic ones, amorphous investigations and formal exercises. The pacing and sequencing tamps down the potential bloat of a project containing nearly two hours of music. Further, the album was mixed by Jim O’Rourke, who did a remarkable job both managing such an armada of improvisers with their own distinctive voices and homing in on key microscopic details, bringing out certain instrumental groupings with a master’s touch.
Last week the terrific Motvind label dropped its first release in more than a year with a new duo album by Gustafsson and clarinetist Andreas Røysum, Vindögæ. The set was recorded live in December of 2021, as the world limped back into mid-pandemic activity. As usual, Gustafsson thrives in setting up situations where another improviser can get to work, developing and locking into slowly morphing patterns. He’s hardly acquiescent, though, as a repeating riff on baritone can suddenly uncoil into piercing abstraction only to identify and ride a new hidden form from within the spontaneous maneuvering. When he picks up his flute about halfway through “Side A” he utterly transforms the atmosphere of the performance. Check it out below.
The considerably younger Røysum, a virtual spigot of untamed energy, likes to go bonkers throughout, pivoting between rheumy overtones, upper register squalls, and biting sallies that celebrate the bass clarinet’s unwieldy sound world, but he can also pull back when it makes sense. Despite a generation difference, they have a clear rapport and deep kinship. It’s an impressive, athletic performance, and as raw as the recording is, there’s no question that catching it in person would have been a far more visceral, rewarding, and exciting experience.
But my favorite Gustafsson album of the year dropped back in March, when Thrill Jockey released THEIR POWER REACHED ACROSS SPACE AND TIME-TO DEFY THEM WAS DEATH-OR WORSE, the reedist’s second album with Joachim Nordwall. It’s a relatively subdued endeavor, but no recording I’ve heard all year has transmitted such bad vibes, a la Wolf Eyes and early Throbbing Gristle. Nordwall crafts impossibly bleak, hyper-minimal synthetic patterns like a single decaying tone that cycles into infinity the opening track “THERE ARE SOME WORLDS WHERE ALL DREAMS DIE (en glad stund)”—I can’t stand the fact that all of these titles are mostly in all caps!—occasionally complemented by ominous electronic swirls and groans, which allow his partner to blow spittle-flecked, heavily aerated baritone lines where the air being fed into and seeping out of his instrument is almost as loud as the tones emerging from the horn’s bell. Listen to it below.
It’s incredibly intimate, and the reduced volume allows all kinds of otherwise overpowered noises—like the percussive clacking of sax keys—to exert a forceful presence. A similar approach is reprised on some of the subsequent pieces, with Gustafsson moving between other reeds in his arsenal—flute, alto fluteophone, slide saxophone, and bass saxophone. Nordwall’s ability to maintain the same basic aesthetic, while subtly changing the nature of the hushed but dreary halos of noise that float like a vapor above of the persistent analog tones, is impressive and the key to this album’s effectiveness, although on a piece like “LOVE SHOWS IN HER SMILE: IT IS CONFIDENT (panik)” he even pares away those repeating pulses, leaving only ephemeral wisps of gurgling synthetic sound. There’s a new level of beauty in hearing Gustafsson’s array of extended techniques modulated downward so extravagantly, delivering on every promise ASMR fails to deliver.
Recommended concerts in Berlin this week
June 6: Ab Baars/Meinrad Kneer/Bill Elgart, Tangent & Mek, 9 PM, Ausland, Lychener Strasse 60 | 10437 Berlin
June 7: Tony Malaby & João Pereira with Delcan Forde & James Banner, 8:30 PM, Donau115
June 7: Sunik Kim/Dominc Coles, 8 PM, KM 28, Karl-Marx-Straße 28, 12043 Berlin
June 8: Tony Malaby/Liz Kosack/Devin Gray, Biliana Voutchkova & Bernhard Meyer, 9 PM, West Germany, Skalitzer Straße 133, 10999 Berlin
June 9: Bill Stewart Trio with Walter Smith III and Larry Grenadier, 7 PM, Zig Zag Jazz Club, Hauptstr. 89, 12159 Berlin
June 9: Der doppelte Schatten, 8 PM, KM 28, Karl-Marx-Straße 28, 12043 Berlin
June 10: Sven-Åke Johansson & Emilio Gordoa/Jean-Luc Guionnet & Seijiro Murayama, 8 PM, KM 28, Karl-Marx-Straße 28, 12043 Berlin