Maluba Orchestra consists of 13 players wielding a total of 32 instruments (not counting the percussion). It was set up by these three composers, each with a highly individual style, who also play in the band. It’s quite possible that you won’t like everything you hear, at least to begin with, but there’s so much variety, such a range of moods and textures in this music, that it’ll charm you in the end. That’s what happened to me anyway. It was Fredrik Lundin’s atmospheric Night Travel that caught me first, then Marilyn Mazur’s delicate Maluba Birds, with its contrabass clarinet and plucked piano strings. (I find that I keep going back to that one.) Over the course of three years, this Danish ensemble has evolved an idiom all of its own, in which improvisation and composition live happily together. It can switch from wild freedom to disciplined accuracy in an instant and generate a fiery rhythmic drive. All this comes to the fore in Kasper Bai’s three-part piece Marcology. Not only is it exciting and full of surprises, it also amounts to a technical tour de force by all concerned.
