The variety of ideas on Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love’s first two Large Unit albums – from ferocious collective and intimately conversational exchanges to world-improv collaborations with Brazilian players – showed how much of a work in progress he means it to be. Fluku is more conventionally structured and features a tighter 12-piece core of the band, but the incandescence is undimmed.
The 27-minute opener reveals an enthusiasm for repetitively riff-rooted, improv-triggering harmonies, as it alternates between terse hooks, squelching electronics, wriggling low-brass and sax conversations, and a sudden unison swagger like an old Art Ensemble of Chicago anthem. Springsummer is contrastingly almost thematically mellow, and borders on lyrical in its clarinet variations. Playgo’s overlapping multi-horns riff becomes a reshuffle of constant tempo changes. Happy Slappy joins clanking abstract sounds, battering drumwork, and blustery high-altitude trumpet lines stalked by a honking baritone sax. The Large Unit is best heard live, but for habitués of musical outlands such as these, Fluku cans its remarkable heat very well.
