elephant9 with Terje Rypdal
“Catching Fire”
(Rune Grammofon RCD2236)
Stale Storlokken – Hammond, Rhodes, mellotron, Nikolai Haengsle – electric bass, Torstein Lofthus – drums
with Terje Rypdal – guitar
The Norwegian trio elephant9 was formed in Oslo in 2006 and made its recorded début in 2008 with the highly acclaimed album “Dodovoodoo”, which appeared on Rune Grammofon, as have all the group’s subsequent releases. Each album has featured the distinctive imagery of artist and electronic musician Kim Hiorthoy.
Their second studio album, “Walk The Nile” received a highly favourable review from former Jazzmann contributor Tim Owen back in 2010, as can be seen here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/elephant9-walk-the-nile" rel="nofollow - https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/elephant9-walk-the-nile
Tim also enjoyed a 2010 live performance by elephant9 at the London rock venue The Borderline, where they shared the bill with the Norwegian ‘psych metal’ group Motorpsycho, a band with which Storlokken has frequently collaborated.
Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/elepant9-motorpsycho-at-the-borderline-london-24-11-2010" rel="nofollow - https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/elepant9-motorpsycho-at-the-borderline-london-24-11-2010
Subsequent elephant9 recordings include “Live at the BBC” (2011) and the studio sets “Atlantis” (2012), “Silver Mountain” (2015) and “Greatest Show On Earth” (2015). Although he also plays guitar Haengsle is primarily a bassist and the “Atlantis” and “Silver Mountain” recordings saw the core trio augmented by the Swedish guitarist Reine Fiske.
Fiske has also guested with trio at live performances and appears on “Psychedelic Backfire II”, one of two live recordings released by the group in 2019, with the first “Psychedelic Backfire” album featuring just the core trio.
I enjoyed both of these live recordings and subsequently reviewed the trio’s next studio album, the more considered “Arrival Of The New Elders” in 2021, my account now forming the basis for much of this biographical material.
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elephant9 have since recorded a further studio album with “Mythical River” having been released in 2024.
2024 also saw the release of the trio’s latest live recording “Catching Fire”, which captures them in the company of guest guitarist Terje Rypdal at a performance at the National Jazzscene venue in Oslo on January 20th 2017. It’s taken a while for the music to be mixed and mastered and to finally be issued on disc, but the wait has been well worth it.
Strongly influenced by both jazz and rock elephant9 have developed a strong crossover following with prog rock fans particularly appreciative of a band that name Emerson, Lake & Palmer (aka ELP) as one of their primary influences. I was never a fan of ELP’s excesses but I’m prepared to forgive the elephants for their admiration for the dinosaurs.
From a jazz perspective Elephant9 have previously espoused something of a jam band aesthetic, a la Medeski, Martin & Wood, and have also tipped a hat in the direction of the Acid Jazz movement. Their primary influences include jazz organist Jimmy Smith, electric era Miles Davis and the band Weather Report.
Terje Rypdal (born 1947) is one of the elder statesmen of Norwegian, and indeed European, jazz and has enjoyed a long association with the ECM record label, with whom he has recorded the majority of his thirty albums as a leader, the most recent of these being “Conspiracy” which was released in 2020.
Rypdal first came to the attention of the wider jazz public in the late 1960s on recordings by composer George Russell and saxophonist Jan Garbarek. He released his first solo album “Bleak House” as far back as 1968 but his career as a bandleader really took off in 1971 with the release of the album “Terje Rypdal” on ECM. He has also worked as a sideman on numerous projects led by other ECM artists, among them pianist Kjetil Bjornstad and the British saxophonist John Surman.
Rypdal is a versatile musician capable of playing in a variety of jazz and rock styles and he has also been a pioneer of modern guitar technology. I have to admit that he’s far from being my favourite ECM artist, Rypdal’s “stratosphere music” has often degenerated into aimless impressionistic noodling at one end of the scale and prog rock style excess at the other. However there’s no denying that he’s been an innovator on the electric guitar blending jazz, rock and contemporary classical influences to forge a distinctively European approach to the instrument. His music certainly isn’t “fusion” in the accepted American “jazz rock” sense of the word.
The bulk of the above paragraph is sourced from my review of Rypdal’s 2010 album “Crime Scene”, a live recording from the Nattjazz Festival featuring Rypdal’s quartet (including Storlokken) in conjunction with the Bergen Big Band. As a recorded artefact it’s only a partial success and I actually prefer the earlier “Vossabrygg” album, another live recording documented at the 2003 Vossajazz Festival and finally released by ECM in 2006. The music of “Vossabrygg” is a commission and represents Rypdal’s homage to Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew”, but via the way of all original music. It is performed by an all star octet that again includes Storlokken.
My review of the “Crime Scene” album can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/terje-rypdal-crime-scene" rel="nofollow - https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/terje-rypdal-crime-scene
Given the length of the association between Storlokken (born 1969) and Rypdal, two musicians from different generations, it was only a matter of time before Rypdal collaborated with elephant9. He had already worked with Storlokken’s other group, Supersilent, at the 2007 Molde Jazz Festival before teaming up with elephant9 for a string of jazz club and festival shows in 2016.
In Storlokken’s words the Oslo date in early 2017 that forms the basis of “Catching Fire” was “a fortunate event”. He expands on this by saying; “It was one of the few times we got a multi-track recording with him. We played some great concerts with him, but this was absolutely the best of them all”.
The album has been mixed in a way that retains the ‘warts and all’ excitement of a live performance and the sound has not been tidied up too much. In his liner notes New York based journalist David Fricke compares it to classic live recordings from both the jazz and rock canons by artists such as John Coltrane, King Crimson, Jerry Lee Lewis and the MC5. He also references recordings by Miles Davis, Van Der Graaf Generator, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and The Doors. It’s a good summation of this ensemble’s distinctive melding of jazz and rock influences.
In accordance with elephant9’s jam band aesthetic most of the six performances are lengthy affairs and the album commences with a twenty two minute rendition of “I Cover The Mountain Top”, a tune from the band’s 2008 debut “Dodovoodoo”. Things begin quietly with the almost subliminal drone of Storlokken’s Hammond, his church like sonorities answered by the bell like chimes of Rypdal’s guitar. From church we begin to spiral heavenwards, the music gradually becoming more spacey and atmospheric, also evoking images of the swirling mist on that titular mountain top. The music gradually gathers momentum with the addition of Lofthus’ drums, his playing restrained at first, a rhythmic pulse behind the guitar and keyboard atmospherics. The piece is nearing the half way mark before bass and drum really kick in with a vengeance, providing the impetus for a fiery Keith Emerson style organ solo from Storlokken. But then the rhythm section drop back again, again providing the pulse as Storlokken and Rypdal develop and exchange ideas, the sounds of distorted keyboards and FX drenched guitars often sounding very similar – and intentionally so if the band’s pronouncements are to be believed. Such is the rapport that Storlokken and Rypdal have established over the years that it’s easy to think of them as a single entity. The quartet continue to build and release the tension with swirling, spacey, atmospheric passages alternating with more hard driving, cerebrally funky moments, finally building towards a relentless climax with churning, motorik like rhythms overlaid by swirling, whirling, wheezing Hammond and with Rypdal operating even above that, an additional musical layer of distorted guitar, variously picked, strummed and chopped, cutting across Storlokken’s lines or soaring above them. It’s a remarkably visceral performance from a musician then approaching his 70th birthday.
The music cuts immediately into the title track from “Dodovoodoo”, which is just a little shorter, clocking in at twenty one minutes. This time it’s heads down and take no prisoners right from the off, with Lofthus’ incendiary drumming and Haengsle’s pulsating bass fuelling Storlokken’s fiery Hammond soloing. It’s thrilling stuff with Storlokken’s playing again reminiscent of Emerson with ELP and The Nice. As elsewhere on the album Rypdal bides his time, giving the core trio their head before unleashing a furious guitar solo above the increasingly frenetic rhythms. There’s another brief burst from Storlokken prior to a bass and drum passage featuring a near funk groove punctuated by eerie stabs of keyboard sounds, including those of the mellotron. It’s the building and releasing of tension again as the momentum increases via a drum led passage, with Lofthus’ highly energetic playing now punctuated by stabs of Hammond as Haegsle returns to re-introduce the funk element as the climb to the summit begins, by way of wailing organ and Rypdal’s powerful, jagged, blues inspired guitar riffing. Most of the applause has been edited out but the spontaneous roar of approval at the end reveals just how much the audience loved it.
There’s no letting up in terms of intensity with the twelve and a half minute “Psychedelic Backfire”, with its doomy, heavy duty riffing, the darkness of the tone perhaps reminiscent of King Crimson, Van Der Graaf, or even Black Sabbath at a pinch. There’s an agreeably gothic feel about the proceedings with the elephantine grooves eventually providing the springboard for a soaring Rypdal solo heavily drenched in both reverb and the blues. Storlokken’s heavily distorted Hammond swirls and wails with a gothic majesty as he takes over. As has become customary the music fades in intensity before building to a raging denouement, with Lofthus’ increasingly busy drumming becoming more prominent in the arrangement.
At just under five minutes “John Tinnick” is the shortest track on the album. Named for a misheard order for a gin and tonic the tune appears on the “Walk The Nile” album and is a frenetic burst of energy that combines a punk like intensity with the prodigious instrumental techniques of jazz and prog. Introduced by Lofthus’ whirlwind drumming and featuring Haengsle’s throbbing bass the frenetic rhythms inspire a feverish solo from Rypdal, the guitarist in full on shredding mode. Storlokken weighs in with some suitably bellicose Hammond. It’s a pure adrenalin rush, and again the crowd clearly loved it.
The introduction to “Fugl Fonix” sees the bass and drum team of Haengsle and Lofthus finally being given their head as they fabricate a complex, rolling polyrhythmic groove that showcases both their own virtuosity but also acts as the vehicle for the instrumental duelling of Storlokken and Rypdal. The guitarist’s FX drenched solo sees him heading for the stratosphere and beyond, accompanied by spacey organ and that still evolving bass and drum groove.
The album concludes with “Skink”, an eight and a half minute explosion of energy featuring kinetic drumming, pummelling bass and the sound of Storlokken torturing his Hammond, but presumably without the aid of knives. Nevertheless the beast bellows in pain as Storlokken pushes it to its limits with fuzz and distortion very much in evidence. Rypdal eventually joins the party, the sound of his guitar is similarly distorted and more than ever he and Storlokken sound like one conjoined, but drastically unhinged, musical organism.
It’s a searing, mind melding way to conclude a live recording that captures elephant9’s consistently dynamic and uncompromising way of music making. This is prog rock meets jazz with an in yer face punk like attitude that helps to make elephant9’s sound unique. Rypdal buys completely into their vision and unleashes some thrillingly visceral solos, worming his way into the fabric of elephant9’s music with bravura and aplomb. There are no airy fairy ambient moments here, this is guitar playing that harks back to Rypdal’s rock roots and his early love for the music of Jimi Hendrix. His solos combine jazz chops with rock attitude and a masterful command of guitar technology. Perhaps even more than Fiske, who in his turn was influenced by Rypdal, the veteran guitarist is a perfect partner for elephant9, with his strong and long established rapport with Storlokken a particularly vital component of this supremely successful collaboration.
“Catching Fire” is an appropriate title and captures the core trio and their illustrious collaborator at their best, the music a perfect amalgam of technical prowess and sheer visceral energy. I love it, but will concede that it’s sometimes all a bit too relentless, or bombastic even, and despite being very much a fan I can still see where elephant9’s detractors are coming from. There’s not a lot of light and shade, there’s more of that on the “Arrival Of The New Elders” studio set, but this live recording does demonstrate that the band are nevertheless skilled in the art of the building and releasing of tension, albeit in a temperature range that varies from the merely hot to the positively molten.
The real revelation is how brilliantly Rypdal fits into all this. He’s always had this rock side to his playing but it hasn’t always been given free rein at ECM, despite the numerous recordings by his Chasers power trio. His playing here is some of the most unfettered of his career, mixing jazz, rock and the avant garde into one potent sonic brew and doing so with imagination, inventiveness and playfulness and with an energy that belies his then near seventy years of age.
Now seventy seven Rypdal has effectively retired from touring and with this in mind Storlokken says;
“That’s one of the reasons we wanted to release this. It’s nice to have this document”.
It’s a very welcome addition to the elephant9 discography but for Terje Rypdal “Catching Fire” represents one hell of a swansong.
from www.thejazzmann.com
