ACT Esbjorn Svensson Trio: Leucocyte

2008


Esbjorn Svensson - pian, claviaturi, electronice
Dan Berglund - bas, electronice
Magnus Ostrom - tobe, percutie, electronice

Inregistrat de catre Ake Linton la Studios 301, Sydney

Mixat de catre Ake Linton la Bohus Sound Recording, Gothenburg

Masterizat de catre Dragan Tanaskovic la Bohus Sound Recording, Gothenburg

AllMusic:
"

It's a damn shame that Leucocyte is the final studio album by the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Svensson died in a tragic diving accident in June of 2008, shortly after this set was finished. More than any other recording issued by this excellent band, Leucocyte captures the art of music making at the moment of conception; it was recorded as live-in-the-studio improvisation over two days in an Australian studio. It was completely finished, post-production and all, with a release date before Svensson's death. The words "post-production" mean plenty when it comes to E.S.T.'s music. The trio often recorded and added sonic effects to their structured, composed pieces. It underscored their hip sophistication and accessibility. It made them a hit with both jazz fans and younger audiences who listen to Radiohead, Sigur Rós, and even heavy metal more than jazz.

The album is dominated by two very lengthy modal suites, near the beginning and end, that offer wildly different views of how they worked as a trio. True, Svensson is a pianist's pianist as both a composer and improviser. His technique is flawless whether he is executing the deft and technical dexterity of someone like Keith Jarrett or the delicate lyricism of Kenny Drew. But bassist Dan Berglund's deep wooded tone and stellar arco work is almost a force of nature, and drummer Magnus Öström's alternately hard swinging and colorful flourishes weave together both thunder and rain. All three messed about with electronics, on-stage and in the studio. The brief, elliptical "Decade," a piano solo, kicks off the set, but is followed little more than a minute later by the two-part "Premonition" suite. Part one, "Earth,'" begins with Berglund's upright bass, pulsing and driving home a syncopated rhythm, illustrated by skeletal illustrative phrases from Svennsson and then the muted percussion of Öström. That bassline drives the track for 17 minutes as electronic sounds begin to establish themselves in between phrases, adorned by ghostly voices in the margins of Svensson's piano lines, which become increasingly more decorative but ever more mysterious. Drums offer fresh force, pushing that bassline into wider dynamic arcs until the whole thing explodes in a kind of postmodern, vanguard jazz lyricism created by taut arpeggios and beats that alternately echo hard bop breaks and Mitch Mitchell on Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun." It becomes a swirling cascade of post-bop, new millennium jazz, as a symbiotic relationship is established between trio members, carrying it into its second part. The latter, four-part title suite is pure heavy metal jazz, thanks to the hard arco work by Berglund and the fluid drumming of Öström -- check the opening segment as feedback and disembodied radio voices create the entire middle as Svensson enters in the lower register of his piano. This is a dark, rumbling, ambiguous, aggressive new direction. It breaks sonic ground while remaining lyric and fluid throughout, even in the chaotic third movement. The mysterious final movement brings a kind of equilibrium from the anger but enshrouds the entire thing in foggy mystery. The arco feedback work also commences "Jazz," but then is transformed into a swinging hard bop tune. The spacious, textural, electronic atmospheres of "Still" point the direction to another, unnameable kind of music altogether while being firmly rooted in jazz.

Leucocyte may well be the final album by E.S.T., but it's an amazing way to go out. This recording offers more questions than it does answers initially, but gives up the latter as a sad but revelatory pay-off when one hears just what is accomplished here."

"It's too easy to fall into the trap of calling the last recording by a recently deceased artist "his best ever" or "a fitting end to his recorded legacy," but in the case of the final release by Swedish jazz superstars e.s.t. before their titular leader, pianist Esbjörn Svensson, died in a tragic diving accident in June, 2008, it's the only way to describe it. Leucocyte is an album that's like nothing the trio has released before, yet it possesses the unmistakable personality that caused the group to rise from obscurity in the mid-1990s to rock star-like fame (at least, in relative jazz terms) in recent years with albums including Tuesday Wonderland (ACT, 2006) and the particularly noteworthy Live in Hamburg (ACT, 2007).

Culled from two days of free improvisations recorded in an Australian studio in the middle of a tour, it's proof that, despite the production veneer that gave earlier albums like Viaticum (ACT, 2005) a pop-like sensibility, e.s.t. was, at its heart, an improvising band. Many of its compositions—sometimes complex writing that remained completely accessible, but other times profoundly lyrical music of spare simplicity—stemmed from ad hoc days spent experimenting in recording studios. But while the group would normally take the results and shape them into more defined form, Leucocyte is presented as it was recorded—with, of course, the additional post-production that always broadened the group's aural landscape into something that drew on elements as far-reaching as Keith Jarrett, Radiohead and Motorhead.

Two lengthy, multi-part suites make up the bulk of Leucocyte—the 27-minute, four-part title track and 23-minute, two-part "Premonition." "Premonition -Earth" is a 16-minute modal workout for Svensson that revolves around a potent groove from bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Öström that relentlessly builds in intensity. Svensson's unfettered yet ever-focused solo is a defining moment that positions him for the jazz history books as more than a contributor to the distinctive, collective voice of e.s.t., but as a remarkable and memorable player in his own right who deserves to be remembered beyond the confines of the group.

But it's the collective interaction that makes Leucocyte the most edgy, adventurous record of e.s.t.'s career. Berglund's harsh, overdriven arco bass has long been a marker, but here it goes beyond heavy metal leanings into the realm of soundscapes, despite "Leucocyte -Ab Initio" being more aggressive than anything the group has done previously. Hard though it is to imagine the group without Svensson, Leucocyte makes clear, more than any other e.s.t. release, that it was always a collective. Öström, capable of both powerful backbeats and textural color, is an equal contributor as the trio enters wholly electronic territory on the closing "Leucocyte -Ad Infinitum," a piece of noise improv that, with ambient overtones, still remains strangely beautiful. "

[John Kelman - AllAboutJazz ]