Austrian group Tupelov are made up of four members, have roots in the post-rock landscape more than likely ten years prior when it was all the rage but have since moved on to create here, on their most recent release, a series of avant sketches based around the softer areas of free jazz and classical musics.
The first cut on Memories of Bjorn Bolssen is a quiet rather unforgiving stab at rendering piano shapes and chords amid thin taps of sticks and electrodes. It begins with a those same heavy shapes and ends sadly hanging on cymbal scrapes and slides. A lot of the album is centred on Peter Holy and his borrowed grand piano, with drums, bass and electronics all allowing space for it. There is musical sense of loss and remembrance, too, for this fictional Bolssen character (who provides ambience on the first track and a fake portrait of whom adorns the front cover, looking like some startled but quiet viola player from a 1930’s Swedish jazz orchestra) and the pieces move slowly, themselves filled with either regret or general uneasiness. Track 3, the terribly titled, “Garlic 07” is the standout. It slows everything down to bass and buzz, still inside a jazz framework and allows guests on clarinet and cello to appear and move through the mournful apparition.
The only thing that jars these sketches together, however, is this strange desire of Holy’s to slam down some awkward chord that instantly sabotages what feels like the intended direction of the pieces. As the rest of the band attempt to push the songs higher, Holy does too, with some gorgeous classical motifs, until he brings his hands down seemingly without forethought. The pieces overall have enough flow and movement to hold everything together though and the general ideas of slow-moving loss and regret hang heavy throughout.
Joel Hedrick
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