Elsa Bergman

Like inflammable liquids and sharp objects graphic scores are items that should be handled with care. Substituting drawings for notation can result is damages if not handled judiciously. Luckily Swedish bassist Elsa Bergman avoids harming either the musicians or the music with her graphical experiment. Known for her work with Lisa Ullén, Mats Gustafsson and others Bergman adapted earlier improvisations to the graphic notation on these eight tracks. She is also greatly helped by sympathetic timbral affiliations from her associates Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, American violinist Katt Hernandez plus locals, guitarist David Stackenäs and drummer Matilda Rolfsson.

Stackenäs’ hocketing frails and slurred fingering along with Silva’s half-valve flutters, inner horn tone eviscerating and plunger plummets are most upfront, with a subdued Rolfsson confined to intermittent percussion splats and cymbal clanks. Hernandez and Bergman often create a swelling backdrop to trumpet and guitar, though the violinist sometime adds curved strokes and curves and the bassist energetic bottom rumbles. Frequently though it’s Silva and Stackenäs who respond to one another’s cues. On “Rosmarie” for instance twisting guitar flanges and tongue-stopped smears give way to a harmonized duet melody completed by a sul tasto bass string slide. “Phone Cords” and “Inspired by Steve Adams” are showpieces for the trumpeter, with Bergman’s comping adaptability obvious on the later as well. Toneless air pushed through the trumpet’s body tube on the first, are followed by rasping growls and tongue sucks that announce the subsequent strings-scraped and crackling moderated theme. Abrasive bass string rub complete the track as Bergman’s splayed spiccato scratches take a similar role on “Inspired by Steve Adams”. But inspiration here is segmented among woody clip-clops from the drummer, a responsive fiddle lines and a rippling exposition from the trumpeter. These thrust into half-valve effects which evolve alongside sul tasto bass string slices at the finale. Illustration of the scores are included in the CD booklet, but of greater interest is not how they look, but the skill with which the quintet interprets them.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Kaleidoscope I 2. Rosmarie 3. Heartbeats 4. Maths 5. The Sea 6. Phone Cords 7. Inspired by Steve Adams 8. Kaleidoscope II

Personnel: Susana Santos Silva (trumpet); Katt Hernandez (violin); David Stackenäs (guitar); Elsa Bergman (bass) and Matilda Rolfsson (drums)