New Albums
ELEPHANT9
Arrival Of The New Elders
Thick-skinned Norwegian trio stir up a strange jazz-rock brew
RUNE GRAMMOFON
9/10
Norwegian jazz has travelled leagues since Jan Garbarek’s glacial era. Elephant9 – keyboardist Ståle Storløkken, bassist Nikolai Eilertsen and drummer Torstein Lofthus – trace a molten, volcanic line of descent from Miles’s early-’70s electric stews and the progressive jazz rock of The Tony Williams Lifetime, Soft Machine and Nucleus. Supersilent member Storløkken’s mystic, murky organs are the most pungent ingredient in this steaming salmagundi, but on their 10th album the threesome achieve telepathic communion. Ranging from the Can-like polyrhythms of “Rite Of Accession” and “Throughout The Worlds” to the weightless slo-mo funk of “Solar Song”, this is an Elephant9 you’ll never forget.