Rymden Rock Tallinn At Jazzkaar 2020

In 2020, the majority of festivals have been either cancelled or postponed, but Jazzkaar in Tallinn opted for the latter, actually managing to deliver a substantial run of performances six months later than originally scheduled. This was quite a significant achievement, as the festival was almost full-sized, with between four and six gigs on most days. Of course, there were none of the usually expected American acts crossing the ocean, but Jazzkaar did manage to include a clutch of players from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany among its line-up, which was more wide-ranging than most other festivals have managed this year. In Estonia, virus-testing at Tallinn Airport promises results well within 24 hours.

The Norwegian/Swedish trio of Rymden arrived fresh from their first post-lockdown gig, in Stockholm, where they’d debuted the live performance of their new album, Space Sailors. This Tallinn gig at Vaba Lava in the Telliskivi Creative City was their second time onstage, as Rymden gradually rise towards a return of fuller activity. 

This is the band that combines keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft with the Dan Berglund/Magnus Öström bass and drums team who originally established their reputations as two-thirds of e.s.t. It was soon strikingly apparent that Rymden were ecstatic to be in front of an audience once more, as a level of urgent engagement rammed against the front rows. The new material is much more direct, possessing the anthemic punch of a Liverpool beat group, particularly in the snap-boom drumming of Öström. The cosmic abstractions remain in atmosphere, but are often swirling above meatier propulsion, with Öström also getting further into using electronics on his kit, often as part of the core rhythm, as well as for surrounding embellishment. 

Meanwhile, Wesseltoft left his piano quite naked for much of the time, contrasting with the other pair’s electronic interventions, as Berglund phased his strings. It was refreshing to hear Rymden as a driving funk outfit on their album’s title track. Soon, Wesseltoft fed in some Korg tendrils, and a brooding electro-bassline, like a soundtrack to the flicks that cinemas are currently missing. The ballad ‘Söndan’ suggested that they were indeed playing the album in its exact running order, with the following ‘Terminal One’ having a sparse dub reggae feel, Wesseltoft back on acoustic piano again, Berglund on a cello-toned bass. Öström took a stereoscopic electro-drum solo, diffused but littered with sudden strikes. Bugge looked very much like a happily crazed Korg-doctor, ripping out a screaming solo, then twiddling down to find deep, bending tones.

On Jazzkaar’s final day, its most ambitious performance transpired at the massive Forum Cinema, a perfect setting for a new work that featured a hugely-projected film for its entire duration. Keyboardist and composer Raun Juurikas worked with the Swiss percussionist Brian Quinn, and Norwegian guest Arve Henriksen (trumpet/vocals). The production of Antarctica 200 also included locational visuals by C.J. Kask and a choral spread directed by Veronika Portsmouth. Actually, the 16 singers were also directly prompted by Juurikas himself, as he’d formulated a new system for enabling his keyboard to issue graphic prompts in real time, allowing a good deal of improvisational flexibility. Juurikas fashioned parts of his music by working with sound recordings made by Timo Palo.

This work celebrates the 200th anniversary of Admiral Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin Von Bellinghausen’s voyage of discovery to Antarctica from the Estonian island of Saaremaa. 

The singers floated down the side aisles, voicing suggestively, as an Antarctic explorer boat’s prow cut through icy tranquillity on the screen, the visuals then swooping above to fly over peak-populating penguins, as Quinn’s tom-tom dramatics added a low frequency powwow. Was it our imagination, or did Henriksen sing to evoke some kind of down-under Sámi folk style, imagined for the South Pole? Drum marches and ethereal voice swellings were given equal time, as a mood of tranquil introspection was sustained for most of the duration, always at a linear level, keeping the visuals, sonics, and collective audience imagination entwined, for an experience that was ultimately treated like a cinematic excursion, as the ship sailed home through bobbing flotations of melted ice. This was a mood-piece on the grandest of scales.