TRYGVE SEIM/ØYVIND BRÆKKE/PER ODDVAR JOHANSEN - The Source & Different Cikadas

For over ten years, saxophonist Trygve Seim has been an active musicians on the underground Scandinavian jazz scene. In 1993, while attending the Trondheim Music Conservatory, Seim formed The Source with trombonist Øyvind Brække and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen. Based on a totally democratic structure, the band has no real leader, and periodically expands to include string ensemble the Cikada Quartet, trumpeter Arve Henriksen and bassist Finn Guttormsen, Seim, Brække and Oddvar Johansen remaining at the epicentre of the formation.
The trio have regularly confronted their influences, ranging from Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis to Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage, with rock, club culture and world music. After three albums released in Norway, Seim released his critically acclaimed debut as a leader, Different Rivers, in 2001 on German label ECM, winning the German Critics Award for album of the year in the process. The Source & Different Cikadas sees The Source expanding again to incorporate accordion player Frode Haltli, who became part of Seim’s own band following the release of Different River, and pianist Christian Wallumrød.
Although most of the music is composed by Seim, Brække or Oddvar Johansen, the ultimate democracy that is The Source means that each musician involved will have a chance to develop his own vision of the pieces. The Cikada Quartet’s improvisational skills as a formation, combined with the experimentations of the rest of the band bring a tensed unity to the fifteen compositions on offer here. Although the main foundation remains undeniably jazz, in its traditionalist meaning, The Source’s organic evolutions also encompass contemporary classical (Organismus Vitalis, a piece made up of seven lines destined to be played indifferently by any of the musician, and which, on the version recorded, evokes as much Jan Garbarek as Arvo Pärt), and world music, as on Flipper, a band’s favourite since 1994, on which Seim swaps his usual saxophone for a “clarophone”, a tenor sax fitted with a bass clarinet mouthpiece, to imitate the Armenian duduk, or Sen Kjellertango, which, as its name indicates, is based on a tango structure.
The exchanges between musicians are incredibly dense and complex, and yet, sound fluid, thanks to the deployment of talents present. A somewhat diverse record in textures and variations, The Source & Other Cikadas is very homogene and consistent all the way through, the band demonstrating a great maturity in the way each musician interacts with the others, intelligently adding to the work while respecting individual spaces at the same time.