Moskus: Mirakler
Hubro

When is a piano trio not a piano trio? When it's Moskus, the wonky brainchild of Norwegian dadaists Anja Lauvdal (keyboards), Fredrik Luhr Deitrichson (double bass), and Hans Hulbækmo (drums, percussion). As listed, that set-up might scream piano trio, but rest assured nothing Moskus performs on this latest outing sounds anything remotely like the kind of thing associated with that tradition. Disassociating the group even more from said tradition, Lauvdal and Hulbækmo augment standard piano (upright as well as grand) and drum instrumentation with in the former's case synthesizers and Hammond organ and in the latter's vibraphone, recorder, Casio keyboard, electric organ, and musical saw. If there's a key word, it's playful: Mirakler is the sound of creators having fun, oddballs delightfully going wherever their collective muse takes them.

Mirakler perpetuates in part the approach the three adopted for their completely improvised second album, Mestertyven, with nine of the thirteen pieces exercises in spontaneous improvisation. Some are so short (e.g., the thirteen-second “Haiku” the extreme case) they register as little more than fragments, but that scenario's still preferable to one where pieces overstay their welcome. As weird as the music often is, it's also sometimes disarmingly pretty, as the gentle, almost churchified reverie “Anslag,” with its soothing synthesizer melodies, makes clear at the outset. Shifting gears, “Irsk Setter” serves up a swinging groove unlike anything you've heard before. Simultaneously stripped-down and maximal, the tune works warbling keyboard noodling and an almost beerhall-esque pulse into one of the album's winningest concoctions. In contrast to its gleeful presentation, “Sang Til C” lurches lugubriously through a wheezing minefield of harmonium exhalations and jazz piano musings (some Keith Jarrett-like vocalizations even shadow the keyboard runs).

September 2018