Jazz and contemporary music from Europe’s northern climes have often been saddled with stereotypes – Jan Garbarek’s lonesome sax laments, or the ambient nu-funk of Bugge Wesseltoft or Nils Petter Molvaer. This perceptively compiled collection, curated by BBC Radio 3’s Fiona Talkington, tells a bigger story. The dark, pulsating folk-fusion music of Finnish group Oddarrang is here, with its twangy guitars and rocking buildups, as is the looping, sonically startling trance-jazz of UK drummer Martin France’s Spin Marvel. Drummer Per Oddvar Johansen’s Let’s Dance, with Torben Snekkestad’s ghostly reed trumpet and saxes, is hypnotically eerie, and a 2010 version of the multinational Phronesis trio with American Mark Guiliana on drums is slow-burningly intense on Eight Hours. Edition Records boss Dave Stapleton’s fine classical/jazz crossover project Flight has young Norwegian sax firebrand Marius Neset in its lineup, while Neset and tubist/composer Daniel Herskedal lead their own ventures on three tracks. It’s a tribute to the innovative Edition label as much as to north-Euro music, but a deserving one.
