Avant-jazz powerhouse The Thing is back with a powerful and
exciting record that ranks with some of the best music this unit has ever made.
Mixing challenging original compositions and radically re-worked alternative
rock songs, The Thing: Mats Gustafsson on saxophones, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten on
bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums uses ferocious free playing and spaces of
lyrical abstraction to present their musical ideas. “Viking Disco/Perfection”
shows them blasting out of the gate with Gustafsson blowing piercing gales over
throbbing bass and thrashing drums. The trio is locked in with the vision that
they have honed over the past fifteen years of playing together and this
carries through both sections of the improvisation, urging each other on until
the end. There is a spacey and abstract beginning to “Til Jord Skal Du Bli”
with skittering cymbals and probing saxophone. They slowly and patiently ramp
up the pressure, beginning with an excellent section for bass and subtle
percussion. Gustafsson rejoins them and the music begins to reach full boil
with long growls and wails of saxophone and very fast and complex drumming. “LOOP
– The Nail Will Burn” is just a short blasting track of riotous free jazz fun,
imagining a free jazz band as a garage rock outfit that is blasting out raw and
excoriating music. Alto saxophonist Anna Hogberg and cornet player Goran Kajfes
join the group on the lengthy song “Aim” which again builds slowly and
patiently, with Gustafsson’s playing sounding akin to the blues in its emotion.
The other horns glide in and up the ante considerably, making the music
majestic and extremely potent. They release into torrid free playing with
Gustafsson’s baritone saxophone on the bottom layer while the alto and cornet
soar and the bass and drums blur with motion. The trio has a crisp and edgy
sensibility on “Bota Fogo,” playing with the melody and then twisting it and
making their own way with the possibilities that it allows. Gustafsson
punctuates this with blistering wails while Nillsen-Love is setting epic
rhythms and Haker-Flaten holds the center. This album shows why The Thing are
such a widely respected group in modern jazz. They are able to seek out and
take a wide range of material, whether their own tunes or song by others, and
make them sound uniquely their own using an individual conception and empathetic nature brought on by so many years playing together. Fans see them as a hard
blowing outfit, which they are, and that is absolutely thrilling. But they also
play with a grace and confidence that makes the music all the more admirable. Shake - amazon.com
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