Eivind Aarset 4tet: Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey
Jazzlandrec

In 1996, Bugge Wesseltoft founded the Norwegian label Jazzlandrec to release his album New Conception Of Jazz. Twenty-five years on, guitarist Eivind Aarset's quartet presents arguably the idea's fullest realization with Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey. At the same time, the label ends up being not entirely satisfying when the music he, bassist Audun Erlien, and drummers Wetle Holte and Erland Dahlen craft resists easy pigeonholing. If the material qualifies as jazz, it's nevertheless a fresh variant that folds multiple other genres—prog, rock, and ambient, to name three—into its fiery brew. The four are joined by Jan Bang (samples), John Derek Bishop (field recordings, treatments), and trumpeter Arve Henriksen on a small number of tracks, but for the most part the album's all 4tet. The core members also expand liberally on the texturally rich sound mix by adding percussion, metallophone, mellotron, vibraphone, electronics, organ, and Casio synthesizer to the arrangements.

If the 4tet calls to mind one act in particular, to these ears it's Paul Schütze's Phantom City. That outfit blazed a fabulous but woefully short-lived trail through the ‘90s on two albums, the studio construction Site Anubis and the live follow-up Shiva Recoil. On those heady affairs, guitarist Raoul Björkenheim and trumpeter Toshinori Kondo draped searing lines across the leader's keyboards in a manner predating what Aarset and company do on Phantasmagoria. The similarity in sensibility asserts itself during the volcanic throb of “Duløc, or The Cat's Eye” and, especially with Henriksen at the forefront, “Manta Ray, or Soft Spot.” Of course his horn sound is so distinctive, it immediately individuates the setting from the others.

A powerful sense of organic development permeates the release. Though compositional templates function as guidelines, the impression created is of elemental material emerging naturally and of four musicians serving the music with a shared vision. Aarset favours textural expression in a way that deepens the dreamlike ambiance of the playing and shows himself to be an endlessly versatile player who's as comfortable dishing out engulfing washes as sharp-edged slabs.

Arising from the haze of the opening “Intoxication” is “Pearl Hunter,” which upholds the band's affinity for textural tactility while imposing a tighter rhythmic focus on the playing. Here and elsewhere, 4tet doesn't shy away from the opportunity to drive a performance with a muscular groove, something that shouldn't surprise with two drummers involved. A dynamic pulse gives “Outbound, or Stubb1” thrust that escalates in intensity via the addition of scalding guitar and synthesizer atmospheres. “Inbound, or Stubb2” roils as lethally, though exchanges its sibling's groove for an attack less rooted in post-punk. The album ends with “Light on Sanzu River, or Dreaming of a Boat,” a gently radiant riff on "Waiting on a Boat" by Anneli Drecker, with whom Aarset often plays. Ending the recording with a more contemplative and lyrical performance feels right, arriving as it does after so much intensity.

November 2021