On the album Sails Set, recorded at Rainbow Studio in Oslo, we
can hear the same trio line-up as featured on the critically acclaimed
album Elegy: bassist Mats Eilertsen (Tord Gustavsen), pianist Harmen
Fraanje (Michael Moore) and drummer Thomas Strønen (Food, Meadow).
Sails Set offers exclusively improvised material, relatively
short and often melodic pieces in solo, duo or trio format. “Our goal
has been to create improvised tunes, sounds and situations that could
equally well have been composed and produced,” says Eilertsen. The
members of the trio communicate seamlessly and effortlessly, and all
three possess a richly varied palette of sounds and make a creative
contribution to the ensemble, both as soloists and accompanists./h1>
Mats and Thomas have joined forces on a wide variety of
projects since they met at the conservatory in Trondheim in the mid-90s.
Among these are bands such as Food, the Maria Kannegaard Trio, Parish
and Turanga.
Pianist Harmen Fraanje met Mats when the latter lived in the Netherlands
for a period of time, and since then they have stayed in touch and
played together regularly in various connections.Sails Set asserts its
subdued and sometimes understated qualities with the resonance of piano,
bells and gongs, or in the lower registers of the bass and percussion
instruments. There are passages with a refrain-like feeling (“Sails
Set”), sonorous and slightly plaintive solo sections with the double
bass (“Lunar Light”), more chant-like, monotonous and somewhat grandiose
passages (“Monument”), and sonata-like piano segments (“Stellar”). As
Mats Eilertsen explains, “For us it’s all about shaping a trio where the
three of us are equal members in creating our sound and where we take
turns being the focal point, carrying the melody, developing the sound,
determining the basic principles, being storytellers and prime movers,
and varying how each of us is distributed in the soundscape. On this
album it’s about being selective, condensing and concentrating, and
prioritising.”
Sails Set is Mats Eilertsen’s fourth release on Hubro, following Radio
Yonder (quartet), Elegy (trio) and SkyDive (quintet), and here he is
returning to the trio format.
