Atomic, the Scandinavian five-piece supergroup, play a short UK tour with saxist Ken Vandermark's band from 16 September – and if the music is anything like this live double album, they will be must-see performances. Atomic take improv to the outer reaches, but then pull it back with infectious swing clamour, hints of Latin jazz or Ornette Coleman, or the Iberian shimmer of the Liberation Music Orchestra with the late Don Cherry's trumpet bubbling through it. Driven by Paal Nilssen-Love, a powerful free-jazz drummer, the band move from trumpeter Magnus Broo's 1970s Miles Davis fierceness, through Havard Wiik's cool postbop piano solos, or flat-out free-swing with saxist Fredrik Ljungkvist playing blurty clarinet. There are quirky minimal themes that sound like piano-tuning, blustery free-Latin melodies, and squeaky improv that turns into circus band stomping and frantic thrashing on the finale's Two Boxes. It's exhaustingly exhilarating, or exhilaratingly exhausting.
Disc 1
1. Green Mill Tilter
2. Andersonville
3. Fissures
4. Murmansk
5. Bop About
Disc 2
1. Roma
2. Sanguine
3. Edit
4. Barylite
5. Two Boxes
Magnus Broo: trumpet
Havard Wiik: piano
Ingebrigt Haker Flaten: bass
Paal Nilssen-Love: drums
Fredrik Ljungkvist: tenor and baritone saxophones, clarinet
info |
