Mark O'Leary - Live in Helsinki (2025)

"Live In Helsinki" finds him in the company of Olavi Louhivuori on drums and percussion, and Teppo Hauta-Aho on bass. Louhivuori is the acclaimed drummer of the current Tomasz Stanko Quintet, and Hauta-Aho is one of the leading Finnish bassists, equally comfortable in classical settings as in the European free improv scene, including collaborations with Evan Parker and Paul Lovens. Although you would expect your regular jazz guitar trio, the music is not exactly that. The trio explores sound, and that includes endless stretching of notes, electronically altered, in dialogue with arco bass and a crackling percussive backdrop. Once in a while O'Leary plays his guitar in regular style, as in "Lost In Snow", first low-toned, then as the tension increases, with increasing distortion. O'Leary does not even hesitate to include some boppish elements even, as in "O", but the most beautiful piece is the slow opener "Vesala" dedicated to the Finnish drummer Edvard Vesala, on which the slow wailing guitar and the arco bass interact in a sad dance. Hauta-Aho's arco starts the equally haunting "Helsinki", quite reminiscent of some of the passages of "Rypdal, Vitous, DeJohnette", a stellar album on ECM. "Sibelius" is more avant-garde, with very nervous playing by O'Leary's clean low-toned sound, with bird-like background noises. "O" is raw and more violent, with distorted fusion sounds and irregular rhythms, while "Omega" brings us back to the beginning, closing the circle of stretched atmospheric sounds. A strong performance and strong record too.
Stef Gijssels