Emmeluth's Amoeba: Polyp
Øra Fonogram

“What is sound? Cacophony, euphony, everything is sound and together it is music,” opines Signe Emmeluth, the twenty-five-year-old Oslo-based alto saxophonist whose debut Emmeluth's Amoeba album is poised for global release following its March appearance in Scandinavia. It's a bold album, especially so for a debut, whose free improvisations and original compositions draw from free jazz and twentieth-century classical traditions. Emmeluth herself's an intrepid, take-no-prisoners player who's joined by guitarist Karl Bjorå, pianist Christian Balvig, and drummer Ole Mofjell on a set laid down last October at Trondheim's Øra Studio.

Regardless of whether the material's notated or untethered from pre-ordained structures, a free-floating quality pervades the quartet's playing, something the lyrical title track reveals in its ponderous unfurl. Emmeluth's alto assumes an almost ghostly character as it voices the track's querulous melodies in tandem with both Bjorå and Balvig, the drummer largely content to sit this one out and save his energy for what's ahead. Rather more restless and animated is “Magma,” during which the group tills more fervently the harmonic seeds planted in the opener. In the tumultuous harmolodicism of the performance, the absence of a bassist bolsters that aforesaid free feel, with in this case all four casting aside the customary restrictions associated with tempo, key, and harmony. Shifting gears dramatically, the nimble “Ladybug” reflects a bop influence, even if the playing's refracted through the boundary-erasing sensibility of free jazz, whereas “Embryo” inhabits a mysterious realm that evidences connections to both jazz improv and early twentieth-century classical writing.

For “Kolibri,” Emmeluth and Mofjell engage in a wild duet that might remind listeners of a certain age of the heat generated by Coltrane and Ali on Interstellar Space, especially when Emmeluth aggressively squeals in the instrument's uppermost registers while her sparring partner stokes his own roar. Elsewhere, the leader flutters, honks, and brays as the material demands, while Balvig is as apt to play inside the piano as out. In like manner, Mofjell and Bjorå exploit the full musical potential of their respective instruments, often coaxing from them unusual textures that lie outside established practice. As fiery as the unit often is, Amoeba's also capable of playing with subtlety and delicacy when necessary.

May 2018