Norway’s much remarked, now venerable declaration of folk-based jazz independence blooms into blissful new dimensions with this first collaboration between regular duo Brunvoll and Urheim and near veteran avant-pranksters Moskus, growing out of a 2023 Vossajazz festival performance.

Hubro is Norway’s prime label for barely commercial experiments, a lab also capable of more obviously appealing new solutions such as Geir Sundstøl’s Bowie-Coltrane marriage on Brødløs (2018) and jazz, folk and pop’s gorgeously melodic splicing here. The similarly wide open vision of compatriots the Andreas Røysum Ensemble comes to mind during shapeshifting opener ‘Nils Klim’’s progress from swaying polka rhythms and Brunvoll and Urheim’s sweetly companionable harmonies, as woozier vocals fall through misty, off-kilter chambers into a baroque pop, harmonium and flute middle-eight. The inevitable loveliness of Brunvoll and Urheim’s tunes meets the Moskus-led title track’s toytown industrial skitter and drone; ‘Paper Fox’’s saloon piano opens prairie vistas of slide guitar. You may wonder at your destination, during ‘Yellow Flower’’s eight prog-jazz minutes, for instance, as its brittle, broken percussion miraculously coheres into gently looping guitar and tumbling vocals, Moskus’s Anja Lauvdal’s rippling piano line meanwhile recalling Mike Garson’s jagged jazz effects for glam-era Bowie.

‘So Low’ suggests synesthetic psychedelia with its almost visible, Cocteau Twins-like sound-world, as Brunvoll approximates Cocteaus singer Liz Fraser’s aqueous tone, floating through twanging guitar clouds till resolution in Brian Wilson-like, beach-cowboy Americana. The closing ‘Limits’ turns potential jazz and avant-classical discord into harmonious liberation choruses, Floydian guitar into ringing folk community singing. The ambition feels egoless, the exploration child-like, the achievement modestly addictive.