Ding Dong. You’re Dead. (Rune Gramophon)
Hedvig Mollestad Trio
Released March 2021
Jazzwise Top 20 Releases of 2021
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l-1aOJ508Janj9Un61GHPoQMWTlJDqidA
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1b3xrNt5nXnHH8y6bHaly4?si=qhxpud6bTNSGX3pTlEqSXA
About:
Only nine months after her momentous debut solo album Ekhidna, the guitarist is back fronting her trio. With their previous album, Smells Funny, this explosive and expansive trio experienced a breakthrough of sorts, having gone from strength to strength through five albums since their 2011 debut Shoot!, gathering respect from both rock and jazz camps. With the hypnotic title track, the spacious ballad “Four Candles”, and a generally more varied mood, Ding Dong. You´re Dead. is the trio´s most dynamic album to date. That said, there´s still enough solid and creative riffing here to satisfy the headbangers, as well as the jazzheads, as they further explore the free and open landscapes most notably started with their Black Stabat Mater album and continued with Smells Funny. As recent performances have shown, online and in the flesh, this trio radiates confidence and have become a surefire hit on the Norwegian live scene. And while we rightly praise Hedvig´s exceptional abilities, let´s not forget how important the rhythm section is to make it all work so well. Ellen Brekken is an accomplished bassist, driving the band just as hard on the electric bass as on the acoustic. Then there´s Ivar Loe Bjørnstad, not your regular rock drummer, not your regular jazz drummer, but in possession of just the right amount of loose swagger.
Track Listing:
1. Leo’ Flash Return to the Underworld (Ellen Brekken) 07:29
2. All Flights Cancelled (Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen) 05:26
3. Ding Dong. You’re Dead. (Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen) 07:08
4. Gimbal (Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen) 05:32
5. Magic Moshroom (Ellen Brekken) 05:32
6. The Art of Being Jon Balkovitch (Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen) 04:42
7. Four Candles (Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen) 05:32
Personnel:
Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen: guitar
Ellen Brekken: bass
Ivar Loe Bjørnstad: drums
Recorded September – November 2020, at Amper Tone Studio, Oslo, Norway
Producer: Hedvig Mollestad Trio
Recorded and Mixed by Bård Ingebrigtsen
Mastered by Helge Sten
Sleeve: Kim Hiorthøy
Executive Producer: Rune Kristoffersen
Review:
That Mollestad would love to have played on Miles’ Live/Evil recordings is the giveaway. This is a guitarist whose writing and playing has such intensity, you fear she may spontaneously combust. Her colleagues in the coven, Bjornstad and Brekken, joyously collaborate in the highly organised mayhem. But Ding Dong. You’re Dead, although rich with the riffing that studs previous releases, is also informed by Mollestad´s wider vision, as expressed through her Ekhidna ensemble or the Tempest II project. ”The Art of Jon Balkovitch”, for example, dedicated to the esteemed Jon Balke (“he has written music so beautiful you can simply stop existing”, muses Mollestad) is a slippery, less architectured piece, confidently sliding across tempos and bar lines, with Brekken´s bass elbowing Mollestad out of the vicious self-discipline the guitarist feels she has to impose on herself. Of course, there are industrial scale rockers like Brekken’s ”Leo Flash´ Return to the Underworld”, redolent of Red-era Fripp, replete with Bruford’s cracked splash cymbal. And to counter-balance frumious belters like “Gimbal”, there’s the splendidly monickered ”Four Candles”. Only Mollestad could vision this as a ballad, replete with sighing swells, like John Martyn and Terje Rypdal arm-in-arm in a ghost rider’s tryst. Throughout it all Ivar Bjornstad’s sound and fury signifies quite a lot as he and the ever-estimable Brekken push this trio to highly detailed yet rhapsodic delights. A trio to honour, an album to celebrate. Ding dong indeed, as Leslie Phillips may have mused.
Andy Robson (Jazzwise)
