Featured Artist: Arild Andersen Group

CD Title: Electra

Year: 2005

Record Label: ECM Records

Style: Progressive

Review:

Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen’s varied musical palate consists of modern jazz and genre busting formats amid his first-call session status for artists, namely on this celebrated, German record label.  This effort was enacted for the performance “Electra,” by the “Spring Theater” in Athens, Greece.  And besides Andersen’s full-bodied acoustic bass tone, this studio session is engineered with dabs of Greek pathos, electronics processing, drum programming, choral vocals and more. 

Andersen’s probing arco-lines and organic single note articulations generate a rich, bottom-end luster to these works that often equate to cavernous regions of sound, where notions of a time-capsule come to mind.  With electric guitarist Eivind Aarset’s panoramic crunch chords providing a swarming backdrop to groove-patterned rhythms and layered effects, the music is largely, indefinable.  Elements of jazz weave throughout, partly due to trumpeter Arve Henriksen’s misty choruses, but world music with an antique-like edge is an attribute that presents itself in an uncanny manner.   

The bassist’s musical mindset is designed with expansive storylines that gravitate into sheets of sound, firmed up by quaint melody lines and subliminal background treatments. Andersen’s music takes on spiritual characteristics, especially with the lead and somewhat, angelic lead vocals of Savina Yannatou and Chrysanthi Douzi.  Ultimately, these arrangements convey a technologically orchestrated electro-acoustic viewpoint, spiced up with East Indian modalities, oscillating rhythmic flows and other niceties.  To that end, Andersen’s inner sanctum is heartily portrayed via a sophisticated approach that yields unorthodox, but highly entertaining residuals.

Record Label Website: http://www.ecmrecords.com

Listen or Buy: Amazon

Reviewed by: Glenn Astarita

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