Orsa - Mnemosyne (2022)

Sometimes it's really almost enough if we get an LP with a brilliantly nice cover, which shows that here it is more than just the music that is important. And that's something Julie Linder Hessellund has managed with the design of the release "Mnemosyne" with the duo Orsa. And with a transparent vinyl with a smoky gray color, which helps to highlight the music we encounter on the album, you are really tempted to go into the music.

Orsa is the largest city in Orsa Municipality in Dalarna in central Sweden, not very far from Mora. I thought this place and the municipality were more concerned with their local fiddle team, which is considered one of Sweden's best, but it was surprising that two Danes should praise the place by Lake Orsasjøen with such a free-ranging and exciting project as this, which is about so far from Orsa Spelemannslag (or Orsa Spelmän, as they call themselves in Swedish) it is possible to come.

For this is a duo consisting of the Danish saxophonist Maria Dybbroe, who has currently chosen to settle in Oslo, and the Danish guitarist Alfred Lykke. I do not know Lykke very well from before, maybe because he lives in Aarhus. But I know Dybbroe from my favorite clubs in Copenhagen, plus a number of nice record releases and concerts in recent years.

Judging by the cover, this is music that is about nature's many abominations - both the beautiful in nature, and the not so beautiful, in a nature humanity is about to destroy.

And the music starts relatively fiercely and freely in the short, but extremely expressive "Glittering in the Sun", before they take it further down in "Eyes of Bliss", where Dybbroe's alto saxophone fits nicely over the guitar's chords. Easily recognizable deep bridges, long tones and phrasings over a restrained guitar.

"The Wind Makes me Float" is, as the title suggests, as if you are lying on your back in a river and letting the current flow down, without thinking about where you end up. A kind of dream series, before we get "With Springs and Stones", a more dramatic improvisation where Lykke puts a slightly gloomy picture in the beginning, and we are a good distance inside the experimental, before we get "From Ripples of the Lake", " A Song for Mars »,« And The Mountains Answered »and« Still Burning »as the last song on page A. The eight improvisations are short, and more suggestive than give us the full and complete story. But generally, this is exciting music to concentrate on while listening.

And the B-side continues where the A-side ended. It is freely improvised and nice, and in the opening on the B-side, "In Nocturnal Fog", you can almost feel the shutter come creeping in and make the landscape gray and unrecognizable. The second track «From Egg Shells» is a beautiful, thoughtful ballad with Dybbroe in front, before we get Dybbroe's «Nasturtier», which does not differ significantly from the outdoors in the previous «stretches». "And Water Skimmers" also puts us in a dream-like state, before we get "As Astral Gifts", with Dybbroe's fine saxophone in front, before they end this 10-inch with "We Hear Bells", also a slightly thoughtful improvisation with Dybbroe in front and Lykke's guitar which puts chords in the background.

All the songs are improvisations the two have worked their way up to, with the exception of "Nasturtier" which is written by Dybbroe. There is a nice whole in the recording that I really appreciate, and the recording is a nice addition to the creative, free-flowing jazz environment that exists in Denmark right now.

Jan Granlie