Fire! Orchestra – Ritual – 2016
Free Jazz, Free Improvisation, Contemporary Jazz, Jazz Rock/Fusion, Drone, Jazz Funk
Collaboration
1. Ritual, Part 1 (10:20)
2. Ritual, Part 2 (9:37)
3. Ritual, Part 3 (12:31)
4. Ritual, Part 4 (12:34)
5. Ritual, Part 5 (7:46)
Alto Saxophone – Mette Rasmussen
Alto Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone – Anna Högberg
Baritone Saxophone, Slide Saxophone, Conductor – Mats Gustafsson
Bass – Johan Berthling
Bass Saxophone, Braithophone, Slide Saxophone – Jonas Kullhammar
Clarinets, Baritone Saxophone – Per ‘Texas’ Johansson
Drums – Andreas Werliin, Mads Forsby
Electronics – Andreas Berthling
French Horn – Hild Sofie Tafjord
Guitar – Finn Loxbo, Julien Desprez
Keyboards – Edvin Nahlin
Keyboards, Violin – Martin Hederos
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Lotte Anker
Trombone – Mats Äleklint
Trumpet – Niklas Barnö, Susana Santos Silva
Tuba – Per Åke Holmlander
Vocals – Mariam Wallentin, Sofia Jernberg
Recorded Dec 17th and 18th, 2015 at Riksmixningsverket, Stockholm.
For several years, Fire! trio – Mats Gustafsson (sax), Johan Berthling (bass) and Andreas Werliin (drums) – have expanded to a larger grouping when occasion and finances have allowed. They say they’ve slimmed down a few members, but we count 21 players in ex-ABBA songsmith Benny Andersson’s Stockholm studio. Known for his ear-splitting sonics and bellicose playing, Gustafsson subsumes his aleatoric instincts here in order to help deliver a driving and surprisingly rock-orientated composition. Broken into five parts, Ritual vibrates with an almost mechanistic, industrial momentum. Although the principal horn-led themes are relatively simple, they have a galvanising force. That’s partly due to their energetic repetition, but also through the assertiveness of their performance, with vocalists Mariam Wallentin and Sofia Jernberg adding passion to the text, taken from esteemed Swedish poet Erik Lindegren, sung in English. Think Magma when they’re firing on all cylinders. After the turbulence of previous sections, the finale reduces to a bluesy march whose solemn steps evoke Ian Carr’s pieces with Nucleus. It’s a smouldering but tightly disciplined and highly satisfying resolution.
Prog (UK)
This is our latter-day equivalent to the Basie band, road-hungry, an evolving personnel of sometimes incompatible personalities, a body of music essentially simple in conception but with a socking punch. The ritual aspects to this are a bit new and it isn’t quite clear, even from the lyric material, what kind of ritual we’re talking about, but the execution is familiar enough, a high-energy mix of coach-built ensembles and fierce solos. Mats Gustafsson’s pranksters never sound like they’re just indulging a tear-up; it’s always more thoughtful than that, and the middle sections of the piece (which is co-written with Johan Berthling, Andreas Werlin and vocalist Mariam Wallentin) are as thoughtful (Ellingtonian?) as you’ll get out of this hardy perennial outfit.
The Wire (UK)
Swedish reedist Mats Gustafsson built this unruly ensemble around his trio Fire!, a fleet, energetic group with bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin (Wildbirds & Peacedrums). On previous recordings the Fire! Orchestra has swelled to 28 members, thickening the trio’s tough grooves and harsh textures with an armada of horns, chanted vocals, writhing electric guitars, and pure noise. The lineup on Ritual is pared down to 18, but the results are no less powerful. The album’s five-movement suite puts the singing of Mariam Wallentin and Sofia Jernberg front and center, where they toggle between hectoring melodies and wordless caterwauling. Gustafsson’s control of the ensemble has never been surer, whether the music is exploding in a torrent of violence and tightly coiled riffing or pulling back to a smoldering vamp—and this dynamic richness turns the record into a roller-coaster ride. It’s exhilarating to hear so many of Scandinavia’s finest improvisers unite unerringly behind a single purpose.
Chicago Reader (US)
Fire! Orchestra may be rocking a new, slim-line configuration of just 21 members (reduced from over 30), but their third album in as many years is every bit as epic as we’ve come to expect from the Swedish behemoth, with massed horns and ambitious arrangements again recalling both Keith Tippett’s Centipede and George Russell’s Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature. This time around, it’s all about the hooks, with heavy insistent riffs ranging from lurching No Wave through to prog-tinged Afro-beat and a ragged rock chug with detuned electric guitar of the kind habitually slung around by Thurston Moore. Subtly detailed embellishments catch the ear throughout: harsh, crackling noise-electronics; strangled sax skronk; and sudden horn blasts and swells responding to mercurial conduction from leader Mats Gustafsson. But it’s the twin vocals that really carry the date. Mariam Wallentin’s raw-edged blues persona and Sofia Jernberg’s astonishing ululations mingle to create a sense of rising, barely supressed hysteria, building a yearning, secular ceremony that makes this session very aptly named indeed.
Jazzwise (UK)
Pulling no punches, the follow-up to Fire! Orchestra’s previous albums Exit (2013) and Enter (2014) begins with a heavy ensemble riff nearly channelling the opening to Captain Beef-heart’s anthem Dropout Boogie. But this soon evaporates into the captivating duetting voices of Mariam Wallentin and Sofia Jernberg and it’s interesting, though not surprising, to note that the elliptic lyrics are sung in English. The dramatic, brass-laden arrangements are satisfy-ingly juxtaposed with appro-priately dynamic vocals. This 21-piece orchestra grew out of a trio comprising Mats Gustafsson, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin and although it’s ostensibly a Swedish ensemble, band members also hail from Norway, Denmark and France. On Ritual, Part 1 the vocals are reminiscent at times of Carla Bley’s Escalator Over The Hill in terms of their emotionally charged delivery. By the advent of Ritual, Part 2 similarities can be detected with some of Keith Tippett’s various orchestras too, invariably fronted by Maggie Nicols and Julie Tippetts and also inasmuch as the singers are utilised as musical instruments rather than as deliverers of songs. The opening to Ritual, Part 3 is dominated by two channels each vying for attention with static and white-noise electronics succeeded by brief forays into melody. Plaintive vocal screeches are subsequently mitigated by a comparatively tranquil section of mellifluous horns and an ensemble chorus. Following an electro-percussive introduction, a fairly straightahead but infectious riff led by the vocals with a rocky 6/8 beat dominates Ritual, Part 4. It concludes with a strange wailing violin/guitar coda. Ritual, Part 5 is a slower, more sombre affair, the repetition of the title acting as a closing statement. 4/5.
Jazz Journal (UK)
Mats Gustafsson and cohorts remain as indomitable as ever with the latest iteration of Fire! Orchestra coming mere months behind the back-to-basics approach of the core trio’s recent She Sleeps, She Sleeps album. Ritual finds the orchestra reduced down to a meagre 21 players and, as a whole, plays better than the somewhat incohesive Enter album from 2014. On that release, passages of free skronk rubbed up against Age-Of-Aquarius vocal wailing and volleys of harsh noise to somewhat inconclusive effect. Ritual generally utilises all these same ingredients but to more intelligible ends, the orchestra sounding more fluid and gelled together. Although at times you become aware that you’re listening to sheer massed forces raging blindly, the excellence of the assembled players points to further reductions of Fire! Orchestra’s numbers in order to shine rather than have their brief spotlight moments before being sharply bundled off stage.
Rock-a-Rolla (UK)
I have often asked myself why I love Mats Gustafsson’s projects The Thing, Fire! and Fire! Orchestra so much. But actually, the answer is relatively simple: It’s these riffs and catchy grooves that kill me - and with Ritual Fire! Orchestra excel themselves. Here they combine the soulfulness of their debut album Exit with free jazz excursions and the prog rock elements of the follower Enter to a beast of ultimate power and beauty. For the first time they have found the perfect balance between elaborate arrangements and free improvisation.
If you compare the music on Ritual to “Enter Part Two“, the central track on Enter, for example, you can see that it already had one of these gripping riffs but then Mats Gustafsson didn’t seem to trust his vision so that he added a pure noise segment so that the piece fell apart.
On Ritual everything is much more organic. The album is conceived like a suite with five cohesive tracks. The lyrics are from Erik Lundgren’s “Mannen utan väg“ (“man without a way“) from 1942, as well as some original texts from Mats Gustafsson, all sung by Mariam Wallentin and Sofia Jernberg (Simon Ohlsson, who added male vocals on Enter, is not part of the project anymore). Three songs are uptempo soul rockers (“Ritual 1“, “Ritual 2“ and “Ritual 4“), two are slow, groovy shuffles (“Ritual 3“ and “Ritual 5“). The first four tracks are loosely connected by solo and duo parts (saxophone, electronics/guitars, drums), only the last track is separated. In these connections the musicians can live out their lust to freely improvise before the solos are absorbed in the notated parts of the compositions.
The three rockers are the highlights of the album, the band is very disciplined and plays them very tightly. This might have to do with the fact that the Fire! Orchestra has downsized. On their previous albums there were up to 29 musicians, now they are just 21 members. This means that they still have the impact of a full orchestra however, the compositions have got rid of unnecessary bombast. A good example of this is “Ritual 2“, an impatient, bumpy funk piece, which consists of three connected layers: the main theme played by the guitars, bass, drums and parts of the reeds, the interspersions by the brass section and the solos that soar above them - the voices (especially Jernberg’s helium voice hits the roof), a nervous trombone and a frantic soprano saxophone. In general, all the tracks have a very dramatic structure, they amount to a climax and then they calm down again (most notably in “Ritual 4“). “Ritual 5“ is the grande finale. Based on a slow Fender Rhodes riff, the brass section throws in excessive chords and the singers move mysteriously between heaven and hell. There is a certain smoothness in this track, if there weren’t disturbing electronic and guitar sounds that save the song from being too accessible.
This music keeps circling like the wind in the aftermath of a storm scattering ashes and debris, the underlying tension is one of the great qualities of the album in general. Finally, there is the sound, which is full and clear. The music is superbly recorded capturing every detail beautifully. All in all, Ritual is one of the best albums this year.
Martin Schray
