Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal – Catching Fire (2024)

Review by Thom Jurek: Catching Fire is a dream come true for fans of prolific Norwegian guitarist/composer Terje Rypdal and his countrymen, free-prog-rock power trio Elephant9 (Nikolai Hængsle, bass; Torstein Lofthus, drums; and Ståle Storløkken, keyboards). The trio cut two excellent out-of-print double live albums with Dungen guitarist Reine Fiske (whose favorite guitarist just happens to be Rypdal) titled Psychedelic Backfire, and they are intimately familiar with the dynamic and responsibility a six-string instrument brings. Further, this joint effort happened because Storløkken (who composed everything here) has worked with Rypdal since the 1990s, and wanted to rope him with a collaboration. The set opens with the 22-minute "I Cover the Mountain Top." Its original version appeared on 2008's Dodovoodoo, Elephant9's first album. The song commences with moody, dark ambient organ sounds and cymbal washes; Rypdal plays sparingly with reverberating single notes and short phrases before slipping out again as the keyboardist alternates between Mellotron and a Hammond B-3, summoning the feel of early Tangerine Dream (circa Zeit and Atem). The restrained progression floats and hovers between several phrases. A more aggressive drum pattern emerges at eight minutes when Rypdal creates a swirl of effects, playing elongated and distorted notes and improvisations. The group matches his intensity for a time as bassist and drummer push the guitarist, and he goes toward the margin and over it. A 21-minute "Dodovoodoo" is up next as the band channels Bitches Brew's avant-acid-funk inside and outside a massive stop-and-start progression. The group quotes from Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child," then spirals it out into a kinetic, angular, deeply groovy jam. Rypdal joins in at five minutes and plays nasty hard-rocking psychedelic funk and rock utilizing and staking vamps and riffs as the band escalates the drama to join him before slowing it down to play Miles Davis-style Big Fun-esque jazz-funk. "Psychedelic Backfire" sounds like Robert Fripp playing with Weather Report circa Sweetnighter in a dark psychedelic blues. Storløkken responds to the rhythm section's vamp with noisy chords and spiky, single-handed runs as Rypdal joins the rhythm section. He gets in a killer solo break near the end. The quartet pushes the gas pedal down on "Fugl Fønix," a ten-minute jam wherein Rypdal and Storløkken channel the instrumental soul classic "Green Onions," then go head-to-head while swinging a shared blues vamp, refracted through hard rock, fusion, and nearly symbiotic interplay with the ever-fluid rhythm section. The group journeys through expansive psychedelia (think Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother), Soft Machine-esque avant-prog-jazz, and free improvisation. It's as trippy as it is compelling. In sum, this album is essential for electric jazz fans. The performance is dynamic, quite dramatic, and intense, with deeply interconnected grooves, ferocious musicality, and sophisticated musical conversation. Catching Fire belongs near the top of psych-jazz fusion albums of the last half-century. — AMG

Track List: 01 - I Cover the Mountain Top 02 - Dodovoodoo 03 - Psychedelic Backfire 04 - John Tinnick 05 - Fugl Fønix 06 - Skink

Media Report: Genre: jazz, prog-rock Origin: Oslo, Norway
Format: FLAC Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec Bit rate mode: Variable Channel(s): 2 channels Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz Bit depth: 16 bits Compression mode: Lossless Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)

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