<\/p>\n
Magnum opus The shock of the new meets old-school synths, free-form rock, gutbucket blues and harmolodic funk in sax master Kjetil M\u00f8ster\u2019s eponymous group\u2019s incredibly various, genre-defying new studio album. M\u00f8ster!\u2019s latest edition is a Norwegian supergroup featuring Motorpsycho guitarist Hans Magnus Ryan (aka Snah), one-time Motorpsycho and Grand General drummer Kenneth Kapstad, Nikolai Huengsle (of The National Bank, Elephant 9, Big Bang and Needlepoint) on electric bass and electronics, plus legendary studio-boffin Jorgen Tr\u00e6en, who also acts as engineer, on modular synths and lap steel guitar. Kjetil M\u00f8ster plays sax, clarinet, electronics and percussion.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The shock of the new meets old-school synths, free-form rock, gutbucket blues and harmolodic funk in sax master Kjetil M\u00f8ster\u2019s eponymous group\u2019s incredibly various, genre-defying new studio album. M\u00f8ster!\u2019s latest edition is a Norwegian supergroup featuring Motorpsycho guitarist Hans Magnus Ryan (aka Snah), one-time Motorpsycho and Grand General drummer Kenneth Kapstad, Nikolai Huengsle (of The National Bank, Elephant 9, Big Bang and Needlepoint) on electric bass and electronics, plus legendary studio-boffin Jorgen Tr\u00e6en, who also acts as engineer, on modular synths and lap steel guitar. Kjetil M\u00f8ster plays sax, clarinet, electronics and percussion.<\/p>\n
As well as jazz, we can also recognise in \u2019States of Minds\u2019 the form and metre of trance-inducing blues and boogie of the type we might find in the \u2018primitive\u2019 electric blues of RL Burnside, say, or the post-modern gloss on the form practiced by harmolodic bluesman (and occasional Ornette-sideman) James \u2019Blood\u2019 Ulmer. From there, it\u2019s easy to hear another sonic link in the chain of influences, to the kind of heroic axe-man flourishes we encounter in the lineage of out-there guitar bands from Cream to Sonic Youth. (Indeed, there\u2019s a story that Cream was expressly formed to echo in rock and blues what Ornette Coleman represented in jazz, after Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were inspired by seeing the Coleman trio at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, London in 1965. Tellingly, neither of them thought to inform Eric Clapton that they had cast him as Ornette.) And yet \u2018States of Minds\u2019 is such a rich mix of influences, antecedents and original experimental interventions that all these echoes account for only part of its promiscuous, genre-hopping style. There are also thoughtful electronic interludes featuring Jorgen Traeen\u2019s modular synthesisers; furiously microtonal slide guitar or lap steel wig-outs, as well as more stately bottleneck-blues melodies that can recall Ry Cooder\u2019s soundtrack themes for \u2019Southern Comfort\u2019 or \u2018Paris, Texas.\u2019 There\u2019s even a slightly poppy, beautifully-poised mid-tempo number where Kjetil M\u00f8ster\u2019s sax sounds as emotionally pliant as any great-tradition balladeer. Significantly, there\u2019s also at least as much or more guitar in ‘States of Minds\u2019 as there is sax or clarinet. One of the great virtues of Kjetil Moster\u2019s role seems to be an admirable ability to submerge his own identity as an instrumentalist within the overall ensemble, and to serve the music as a whole rather than his own considerable virtuosity.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also worth restating how highly developed – and how extensively documented – Kjetil M\u00f8ster’s virtuosity is. From a very early age he has worked across the normal boundaries separating different types of music, especially those operating between experimental rock and jazz, in a way that remains relatively unusual. M\u00f8ster is also a multi-instrumentalist from way back, who after beginning on accordion as a child went on to learn cornet, tuba, bass and saxophone, and then to perform on guitar with the rock band Riper i lakken from the age of thirteen. The first version of M\u00f8ster! was formed while M\u00f8ster was a student at the Trondheim Musikkonservatorium between 1995-98. In the two decades since he has continuously sought out new and experimental opportunities with a myriad of projects, including the electronic band Datarock, as well as touring with R\u00f8yksopp and Robyn and continuing to develop the various iterations of M\u00f8ster!, whose 2014 Hubro album \u2018Inner Earth\u2019 was recorded with Jorgen Traeen at Duper Studio in Bergen, and featured the same cast of musicians that is reprised – together with Tr\u00e6en and the locale of Duper Studio – we hear on \u2019States of Minds.\u2019<\/p>\n
But that was then, this is now: \u2018States of Minds\u2019 is unprecedented, both in the intensity of its musical address to the listener; its fearless, uncompromising spirit of adventure and experiment; and in the way the form of the album develops on both a micro level within each individual piece, from the minimal (the one minute duration of \u2018Plate Sized Eyes\u2019) to the maximal (the twenty-minutes plus of \u2018Brainwave Entrainment\u2019; and \u2018Life Wobble\u2019) and the macro level of the totality of each individual LP and the whole magnum opus of the overall double album. It is also never, ever boring.<\/p>\n
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