Maetrix combines the name of the cult 1999 film with metrics, and was a result of a 2016 commission from Trondheim that allowed Berg to hand-pick the musicians in the big band line-up. Buried among the names is Edition Records’ star Daniel Herskedal, Rob Waring, the American ex-pat now living in Oslo who features on John Surman’s recent Words Unspoken, and the perspicacious Ole Morten Vågan, artistic director of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Odin recording artist, and in general a busy bee on the Oslo jazz scene.

While there is is a refreshing melodic clarity in Berg’s writing, his use of voices, rooted in homophonic/polyphonic conceptuality, reduces the role of a large ensemble to that of a slightly enlarged small group, so loosing the characteristics that makes a big band a big band. The moodily haunting ‘Bølge’ and ‘Zipline,’ at times a bit Metheny Still Life Talking-esque, are certainly engaging, and together with title track – well written, well executed and melodically beyond reproach – lacks just one thing, that of being what a big band is supposed to be.