TERJE RYPDAL — Min Bul (with Bjørnar Andresen, Espen Rud) (review)

TERJE RYPDAL — Min Bul (with Bjørnar Andresen, Espen Rud) album cover Album · 1970 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
snobb
Beginning in 1971, Norwegian guitarist, Terje Rypdal, became one of the most respected ECM label artists with a big collection of good and even great albums. Being an experimental musician by nature, his output spans jazz-rock,as well as classic and modern eclectic fusion. Probably in Terje's case, four decades of collaboration with ECM was a positive factor - he stayed as one of the label's few artists with a very personal musical face, and at the same time got wide distribution and support from the established music company.

Besides Rypdal's ECM history, there exists a much smaller, but interesting collection of his releases on other labels. His most interesting releases are his albums from the late 60s and very early 70s. His debut, "Bleak House", (on Norwegian Polydor) was re-released many times (on vinyl and CD) around Europe and Japan and is quite well known. His second release (on the same label), "Min Bul", came out in 1970 and stayed in the shade till now. Actually it was re-released (for the first time) in 2003 by EmArcy in Europe on CD (the other reissue is Norwegian collectible vinyl on Panorama,2008) but still, many of Rypdal's fans don't know this album even exists.

It's a pity, "Min Bul" is a highly experimental work for its time. On this album, a Norwegian guitar-bass-drums trio lead by Terje plays electric, often scratchy and even noisy fusion on the edge of avant garde jazz. The nearest work to compare to is probably Miles Davis' "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" , but it was released a year later! On the other hand, the same label (Polydor) released albums of similar concept that same year, (Jack Bruce "Things We Like" with John McLaughlin, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman), but Terje's work is much more experimental and mature.

This album's opener, "I Cried A Million Tears Last Night", is one of the very early prototypes of NY downtown noisy guitar avant-garde that would be coming many years later. Probably nowadays, listeners might find some of the album's moments a bit dated, but it is undoubtedly a valuable historical release.
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