Ever since Esbjörn Svensson s untimely death, fans have been
longing
for access to archival material and s. With 301, they
get a
full album of previously unreleased original music!
Review
------
Original, absorbing, and dynamic. --JazzWise
The Swedish piano trio at its most thrillingly effective. --The
Independent
A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo
The Swedish piano trio at its most thrillingly effective. --The
Independent
A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo
Posthumous releases aren't anything new in jazz, but there's
something particularly poignant about the recent release from
Sweden's Esbjörn Svensson Trio (or E.S.T. for short).
Culled from nine hours of music recorded just before the
accidental death of pianist Esbjörn Svensson at 44 years old in
2008, 301 named for the group's studio) is probably the
final statement this trio will get to make, a reality made all
the more poignant by being such an engrossing listen.
With a little luck, however, this will be the album to raise the
trio's profile in the U.S., even if it comes a few years too
late. Something of the Scandinavian equivalent of a meeting
between the Bad Plus and the Brad Mehldau Trio, E.S.T. earned a
following in Europe by mixing up the formula for what and where a
jazz trio could play. Informed by a panoply of influences that
included hip-hop, classical, pop and electronic music, E.S.T.
landed on MTV Scandinavia and collaborated with guitarist Pat
Metheny in 2003.
Pulled from the same marathon sessions that yielded 2008's
Leucocyte, 301 was edited by E.S.T.'s surviving members and its
sound engineer (all three band members are credited with
electronics). After the elegiac opening of Behind the Stars, the
evocative Inner City, City Lights features Svensson's
contemplative piano feeling out a melody over a hissing rhythmic
backdrop, which sounds a little like an icy radio transmission.
A two-part mini-suite, Three Falling Free opens with a gentle,
unsettled melancholy, but as the song builds it becomes a
sprawling funk-shaded anthem charged with driving piano, a
near-tribal beat and a churning fuzz guitar effect that could've
come out of '90s Manchester, England. The Left Lane and
album-closer The Childhood Dream also show E.S.T. as just as
agile as an acoustic trio, with the latter sounding delicate
enough to have fallen out of Keith Jarrett's catalog. We can only
wonder where this trio could have ventured next. By Chris Barton
--Los Angeles Times
A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo
Posthumous releases aren't anything new in jazz, but there's
something particularly poignant about the recent release from
Sweden's Esbjörn Svensson Trio (or E.S.T. for short).
Culled from nine hours of music recorded just before the
accidental death of pianist Esbjörn Svensson at 44 years old in
2008, 301 named for the group's studio) is probably the
final statement this trio will get to make, a reality made all
the more poignant by being such an engrossing listen.
With a little luck, however, this will be the album to raise the
trio's profile in the U.S., even if it comes a few years too
late. Something of the Scandinavian equivalent of a meeting
between the Bad Plus and the Brad Mehldau Trio, E.S.T. earned a
following in Europe by mixing up the formula for what and where a
jazz trio could play. Informed by a panoply of influences that
included hip-hop, classical, pop and electronic music, E.S.T.
landed on MTV Scandinavia and collaborated with guitarist Pat
Metheny in 2003.
Pulled from the same marathon sessions that yielded 2008's
Leucocyte, 301 was edited by E.S.T.'s surviving members and its
sound engineer (all three band members are credited with
electronics). After the elegiac opening of Behind the Stars, the
evocative Inner City, City Lights features Svensson's
contemplative piano feeling out a melody over a hissing rhythmic
backdrop, which sounds a little like an icy radio transmission.
A two-part mini-suite, Three Falling Free opens with a gentle,
unsettled melancholy, but as the song builds it becomes a
sprawling funk-shaded anthem charged with driving piano, a
near-tribal beat and a churning fuzz guitar effect that could've
come out of '90s Manchester, England. The Left Lane and
album-closer The Childhood Dream also show E.S.T. as just as
agile as an acoustic trio, with the latter sounding delicate
enough to have fallen out of Keith Jarrett's catalog. We can only
wonder where this trio could have ventured next. By Chris Barton
--Los Angeles Times
A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo