Description
The untitled ECM double-album debut of young Norwegian saxophonist, composer and improviser Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg is an arrestingly original musical statement.
'Jazz' players and 'classical' players are drawn together in her ensembles, but the music shapes its own world, outside genre definitions. Mette Henriette is interlacing form and freedom in fresh ways here, as her intense and focused tenor saxophone sound moves inside compositions of sometimes disarming fragility.
In this music, vulnerability can be as potent a force as full-tilt blowing, but there is a place for both. The recording's expressive and emotional range is wide.
Disc one here features trio music with Mette Henriette, pianist Johan Lindvall and cellist Katrine Schiøtt. Disc two has Mette's "sinfonietta" with thirteen players. Line-up of the larger group includes some names familiar to ECM listeners - trumpeter Eivind Lønning, drummer Per Oddvar Johansen, and the members of the Cikada Quartet - all pooling creative energies to serve Mette's music.
The album was recorded at sessions in Oslo in May and August 2014, and produced by Manfred Eicher.
"A contemporary-music star on the rise." - John Fordham, The Guardian
"The album I keep returning to after discovering it late in the day is the extraordinary 'Mette Henriette'. […] A double album featuring the eponymous sax-playing leader in a trio with piano and cello for the first disc, and with an ensemble of 13 for the second, on both the music veers from quiet as a mouse murmurs to scare-the-neighbours-screams. In short, it's amazing, and not at all inimical to (Kamasi) Washington, despite opposing stereotypes." - Phil Johnson, Independent on Sunday
"There is a conviction here, perhaps the utter certainty of youth, that gives this surprising debut album its own electrical charge." - Cormac Larkin, Irish Times
"What this demonstrates beyond doubt is that form and freedom can co-exist in a harmonious relationship […] One of the most intriguing new releases of the year and it just may find its way on to the best newcomer of the year list." - Tim Stenhouse, UK Vibe
"All in all, it's one of the best things I've heard this year […] If Wayne Shorter had been born a woman in Norway around 25 years ago, this is the music he (or rather she) might be making today." - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
"(A) brilliantly ambitious debut on ECM. […] Sometimes it's oh-so-quiet, sometimes it's satisfyingly loud; at all times it's atmospheric and richly detailed […] it's abstract but tactile, with an emphasis on texture over melodic line […] it's an ambitious and engaging introduction, with powerful compositional and improvisational chops." - Robert Shore, Jazzwise