Ny skive ute på Rune Grammofon : Atlantis
On their fourth album, counting the limited vinyl only ”Live At The BBC”, Elephant9 join forces with Reine Fiske, the quite excellent Swedish guitarist from Dungen, The Amazing and Träd, Gräs och Stenar, for yet another heavy slice of mindblowing modern rock´n´jazz psychedelia. Writers have called upon names like Tony Williams´ Lifetime, Deep Purple, Brian Auger, Emerson Lake & Palmer and early seventees Miles Davis to describe the music, pointing to the fact that Elephant9 are comfortable in both rock and jazz.
Reine Fiske makes his entrance on the title track, the long intro section almost sounding like it could have come off an early Terje Rypdal album. No coincident considering Fiske is a big Rypdal fan and Storløkken being Rypdal´s keyboard player for well over a decade. His guest spot ends with the final thirteen minute tour de force and its heavy funk intro reminiscent of another guitar great and his Band of Gypsys.
”Atlantis” is all originals, four from Storløkken and three from Eilertsen, recorded at Stockholm´s legendary Atlantis studio under the masterful supervision of Janne Hansson and the band´s regular engineer Christian Engfelt.
Ståle Storløkken is widely considered to be the most inventive keyboard player from the fertile Norwegian jazz scene, his playing with bands like Supersilent, Humcrush, Motorpsycho, Terje Rypdal and countless others being firm testament to this.
Nikolai Eilertsen was first known to the Norwegian public through his playing with popular rock group Big Bang and later chart topping pop group The National Bank.
Torstein Lofthus is a most versatile drummer who has done a lot of session work as well as playing in jazz, soul and rock bands, most notably blackjazzers Shining.
Said about previous albums
Furious prog-jazz debut… woozy psychedelic… 4/5. Mojo (UK)
Fabulous debut also sourcing 60s and 70s psych/cosmic rock. 4/5. Uncut (UK)
Keep an eye out for Elephant9, they’re amazing. Allmusic (US)
Shockingly great band… highly recommended! Wayside Music (US)
Bullshit free jazz rock. The Wire (UK)
Powerful second album… it´s attack is tighter and more ferocious. Downbeat (US)
A groove-laden, locomotive powerhouse. The Jazzman (UK)
