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ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s “(Exit) Knarr—Live At Artacts ’22”

While it may be a stretch to say that bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten has been a citizen of the world, he’s certainly been a citizen of the jazz world. Born and raised in Oppdal, a small town in Norway that’s also a couple hours’ drive from the country’s biggest jazz festival and most prestigious jazz school, Håker Flaten has made a couple continents his home and played on several more. If you’ve dug Atomic, the Thing, the Rempis Percussion Quartet and/or Exploding Star Orchestra, you’ve been swayed by his stout-hearted, hard-swinging, acoustic-bass playing. He’s also lent slabs of electric noise to other combos based in his serial hometowns of Trondheim, Oslo, Chicago and Austin. You can hear all of that and more on (Exit) Knarr—Live At Artacts ’22.

(Exit) Knarr started out as an expression of Håker Flaten’s internationalism. Commissioned to play at the Vossajazz Festival in 2020, it was originally conceived by Håker Flaten to be an all-star ensemble that convened representatives of his projects in Europe, the U.S. and Central America. But COVID not only shut that down, it impelled the bassist to store his stuff in Texas and return to Norway. Initially, he hoped to ride out the bug on ancestral turf, but he ended up resettling in Norway. He reorganized (Exit) Knarr into a locally staffed combo that could tour the country in a time of closed borders and released an album by that band in 2021. Then, in the winter of 2022, when touring meant testing at every venue or border crossing, he took it on the road around Europe.

Live At Artacts ’22 was recorded at a significant stop on that tour. The Artacts Festival is a small but prestigious gathering held in St Johann in Tirol, Austria. Not only does the fest invite Europe’s best improvisers to play up in the mountains, it records some of those sets and turns them into scrupulously rendered vinyl records. But this one isn’t just a souvenir of a swell concert; it’s a snapshot of a bandleader coming into his own. The earlier albums that Håker Flaten has made as a leader tended to reflect the communities and personalities that he was involved with at a given moment. Originally conceived as a more global version of that approach, (Exit) Knarr transformed on the road into a combo that represents an inclusive-yet-balanced representation of Håker Flaten’s composing.

For while “Miles Ave” (named for the street he lived on in Austin) and “Håkkåran” develop from introductory improvisations, they cohere into musical expressions of Håker Flaten’s diverse interests. The former tune combines tight horn charts like those that the bassist has played with Atomic and various Chicagoan outfits with Latin rhythms and a piano-led detour that smells of salt off the fjord. “Chaos Pad” lofts burly horn solos and extraterrestrial synth burps over a groove that alternates between brisk swing and a stiffer, rocking backbeat. And “Museumplein” layers keening brass, stinging electric guitar and slabs of low-end feedback. Håker Flaten doen’t just put all this stuff together; he sets his musicians up to simultaneously show their stuff and make it cohere. It’s as exciting as it is ambitious. [Idyllic Noise/Sonic Transmissions]

—Bill Meyer