Huntsville: Pond

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Tonny Kluften (b)
Ivar Grydeland (el g, pedal steel, elec)
Ingar Zach (perc)

Label:

Hubro

May/2015

Catalogue Number:

HUBROCD2549

RecordDate:

June 2014

Over the last decade or so, Norwegian trio, Huntsville, have forged a unique musical language that draws deeply from several key American forms, including minimalism, post-rock and electrified jazz improvisation. Typically, these come together in a distinctive locomotive rush, driven by the hurtling momentum of Zach's railroad percussion – as on the opening track here, ‘(ER)’, which even has Grydeland's pedal steel imitating the lonesome whistle of a freight train as it cuts through the prairie night. But the rest of their fifth full-length album finds them moving somewhat further away from travelogue Americana and investigating less strictly delineated, long-form improvisations with more room to manoeuvre. There's a strong sense of collage at work: ‘(ING)’ piles up juddering, backwards guitar, splayed sprays of bass guitar notes and scattershot, whip-crack percussion like American maverick composer-hobo Harry Partch running a stick over the slats in a stationary box-car. Even when the music is at rest, there's an expectant tension, like a long journey just about to begin.

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