Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Ståle Storløkken (org, syn)
Hedvig Mollestad (g)
Ole Mofjell (d)

Label:

Rune Grammofon

October/2023

Media Format:

2 CD, 2 LP, DL

Catalogue Number:

RCD2232

RecordDate:

Rec. 20 April, 1 and 5 September 2022

Mollestad has always had to barrel hoop her energies to bring form to her eruptive powers. Her trio is hyper-rehearsed to the last demi-semi-quaver, while her ensemble albums, Tempest ReVisited, Ekhidna and Maternity Beat feature fiercely structured through-written sections.

But with Weejuns, the corsets are off. This live double album captures the trio improvising extensively, with written-in hooks and riffs keeping the three oriented. But otherwise, the trio race and rail against each other, urging yet often contemplative. Red-era Crimson, Live-Evil Miles, Terje Rypdal's live projects, and pre-Jack Bruce Lifetime are all signposts. Yet this trio has its own voice, based on long association, notably between the guitarist and Storløkken’s sea-swell organ and synth work.

The album’s emotional heart is the 21-minute ‘I’ll Give You 21’. Like Maternity Beat’s ‘On the Horizon Part 1’, its inspiration is the eerie terror of Scott Walker’s ‘Farmer in the City’. Initially all bowed guitar and whale song atmospherics, it coalesces into a riff that’s massive even by Mollestad’s Jovian standards. But the Weejuns aren’t all snarl and roar; ‘Come Monday’ with its rolling toms and Storløkken’s restive soundscapes nestles against positively naïve guitar chords, while the closing ‘Pity the City’, with the clue in its title, is an evocation replete with an elegiac Mollestad solo and densely sparked patternings from Storløkken.

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