Fire! Orchestra: Enter
Author: Daniel Spicer
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Elin Larsson (ts) |
Label: |
Rune Grammofon |
Magazine Review Date: |
August/2014 |
Catalogue Number: |
RCD 2158 |
RecordDate: |
10 January 2014 |
As the trio Fire!, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin have, since 2009, been making moody jams with the emphasis on glowering, down-tempo grooves. The concept was blown wide open in 2013 with the release of Exit!, a live album by the hugely expanded Fire! Orchestra featuring the core trio plus around 30 of Sweden's top improv and experimental musicians, which mixed clamorous free jazz with grinding, motorick riffs. Now, for the Orchestra's first studio album, the emphasis has shifted back to the slow-burning grooves. The album begins and ends with a sultry Fender Rhodes theme and Mariam Wallentin's bluesy vocals, bookending a powerful suite that moves through a deep reimagining of the hook from The Beatles' ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, a massed horn anthem with hints of Chris McGregor and a driving modal vamp. It's all liberally peppered with scalding noise electronics, tortured horn skronk and Sofia Jernberg's astonishing vocal glossolalia. Enter doesn't quite match the intensity of the live debut – and doesn't make nearly as much use of the Orchestra's impossibly talented members – but, even so, fans of Keith Tippett's Centipede or Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill will find a lot to love.

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