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Verneri Pohjola

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3
Album Review

Slowly Rolling Camera: Flow

Read "Flow" reviewed by Geno Thackara


At first glance, it looks like an album they were always destined to make. Natural flow has been one central characteristic of Slowly Rolling Camera since the start. From their beginnings in quasi-trip-hop/jazztronica fusion, through a shift into a picturesque instrumental outfit, they have always been effortlessly fluid and comfortable with a good slow burn. They have seemed to be following a sort of elemental theme as well, with Juniper (Edition, 2018) setting down some earthy roots and Where the ...

6
Album Review

Emma Salokoski with Ilmiliekki: Joulu Joulu Jul

Read "Joulu Joulu Jul" reviewed by Anthony Shaw


If you are looking for a novel way of approaching the December 2022 festive season, musically speaking, and are not deterred by a mixture of Nordic languages, then this album may appeal. The songs are sung in Swedish and Finnish, and without any accompanying lyric sheet an English speaker might do well to search for lyrics online. Keen observers of the Nordic jazz scene will know the band behind the album from its prominence in the mid 2000s, following victory ...

17
Album Review

Ilmiliekki Quartet: Ilmiliekki Quartet

Read "Ilmiliekki Quartet" reviewed by Pat Youngspiel


When opener “Three Queens" kicks off seemingly mid-motion, Verneri Pohjola, Tuomo Prättälä, Antti Lötjönen and Olavi Louhivuori—a foursome going by the name of Ilmiliekki Quartet—sound as though they've already been at it for a while. They're all warmed up, in complete sync and have found a common groove at which they're smoothly tugging and pulling in a united front. There is a stumbling notion to how the piano keys fall from one chord into another, constructing cadences and voicings as ...

29
Album Review

Espoo Big Band: Blood Red

Read "Blood Red" reviewed by Jack Bowers


If the music on Blood Red, the eleventh album by Finland's world-class Espoo Big Band, sounds more Middle Eastern than Scandinavian, there's a reason for that. It was inspired, writes composer/arranger Mikko Hassinen, by 2006 Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk's book, My Name Is Red, set in sixteenth-century Istanbul. The music “doesn't describe or explain the story or the characters," Hassinen writes. “Rather, it is a reflection of the different feelings evoked by the novel," and its lyric influences are largely ...

8
Album Review

Antti Lotjonen Quintet East: ALQE

Read "ALQE" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


Bassist Antti Lötjönen is anything but a small name in the Finnish jazz cosmos. Holding down the deep frequency spectrum in some of the country's most renowned instrumental outfits, such as the electronica-infused jazz trio 3TM or the acoustic Ilmiliekki Quartet, Lötjönen has established a cunning reputation as a sideman leading up to this, his debut release as a leader with the so-called Quintet East. Accordingly high are the expectations of a musician of his caliber—expectations which are more than ...

2
Album Review

Sylvain Rifflet: Troubadours

Read "Troubadours" reviewed by Anthony Shaw


Sylvain Rifflet has been playing adventurous, somewhat rock-related jazz for since around 2000, and for much of the time has done so alongside a trumpeter. His emergence on the international scene in the first decade of this century was with the French quintet Rockingchair, where his co-leader was contemporary French trumpeter, Arielle Besson. They were awarded a 'Django d'Or' medal for their first album and subsequent releases have been well received. On the 2019 album Troubadour, Rifflet is ...

8
Album Review

Pauli Lyytinen Magnetia Orkesteri: Hypnosis

Read "Hypnosis" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


It can be interpreted as quite the democratic statement when an album from a saxophonist is introduced with an almost two-minute long drum solo that solely focuses on the percussive qualities of the instrument. Which is exactly what drummer Mika Kallio does on the opening segment of the Finnish saxophonist Pauli Lyytinen's sophomore album with the Magnetia Orkesteri. It doesn't take a professional translator to figure out that this quartet's name has something to with magnetism and is referred to ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Flow

Edition Records
2023

buy

Ilmiliekki Quartet

We Jazz Records
2022

buy

Joulu Joulu Jul

We Jazz Records
2022

buy

Blood Red

Galileo Music
2021

buy

The Dead Don't Dream

Edition Records
2020

buy

Hypnosis

Eclipse Music
2020

buy

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