Møster!: States of Minds
Hubro

Unusual for a Hubro release, Møster!'s States of Minds is a double-disc affair (CD and vinyl both), such largesse needed to accommodate a recording that opens both discs with twenty-minute opuses. In another context, the ten-minute “Unhorsed by Chivalry” would tower over others; in this instance, it's cast in shadow by “Brainwave Entrainment,” the colossus that introduces the set and is twice its length. Møster!, by the way, came into being when tenor saxist Kjetil Møster was invited to the Kongsberg Jazzfestival in 2010 and is represented on the new release by the leader (sax, clarinet, electronics, percussion, drums), Hans Magnus Ryan (guitar, electronics), Nikolai Hængsle (electric bass, electronics), Kenneth Kapstad (drums), and Jørgen Træen (modular synth, lap steel guitar).

That those two aforementioned epics are credited to all five suggests the presence of some improv-like quality, but they're hardly directionless jams; instead, predetermined pathways give the material structure, though guidelines not so firmly set in place they prove constricting. “Brainwave Entrainment” (arguably an even better choice of album title than the one used) first slathers floor tom rolls and cymbal flourishes with spooky doom-ambient howls before segueing into a pulsating, synth-driven episode that calls Pink Floyd's “On the Run” to mind and then settling into a punchy krautrock throwdown, the whole thing a noisy, unapologetic cri de coeur. Møster wails throatily and Ryan emits shards as the others lock into a post-rock groove, the intensity leavened by a Tangerine Dream-like breakdown that could pass for an invocation of the spirits and a subsequent crawl through a landscape shattered by destruction and disease.

Understandably the tracks sequenced after the epics can't help but be overshadowed, yet many hold their own. With Michael Henderson-styled bass riffing in place, “Unhorsed by Chivalry” plays like some On the Corner homage with Møster in place of Miles—at least until the material morphs into a thunderous, guitar-shredding exercise in psych-rock. At such moments, Møster! begins to sound like the most awesome band on the planet and one whose roar it'd be amazing to experience live. Rounding out disc one are a one-minute sketch, “Plate Sized Eyes,” whose atonal twang nods in Derek Bailey and Arto Lindsay directions; “Mystère,” a downtempo stab at sludgy stoner rock; and, as if the galaxial intensity of “Brainwave Entrainment” and “Unhorsed by Chivalry” weren't enough, “Bow Shock,” a light-speed cranium-destroyer drowning in blistering guitars and pummeling drums.

States of Minds would be a thrill ride if it were disc one alone, but of course a second's along to double the fun. Like the first half's opener, “Life Wobble” evidences some degree of structural form whilst allowing space for spontaneity. Rather than bolting from the gate, the group eases into the material with a loose, quasi-funk groove, spacey textural treatments the focus until the music heats up and reaches a stunning broil. In contrast to that piece's explorative open-endedness, “Phantom Bandotron” sees the leader voicing a strong melody and the band digging into slippery funk-rock. Similar to the first disc, the second rounds out its presentation with excursions into other stylistic zones, from the tripped-out sci-fi skronk of “Sounds Like a Planet” to the slow-motion languour of “Mon Plaisir.”

October 2018