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Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal — Catching Fire
(Rune Grammofon RCD2236, 2017/2024, CD / 2LP / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-10-28

Catching Fire Cover art

In spite of this double-LP set being brand spankin’ new (also available on CD), it’s actually an archival release recorded in January 2017 not long after we reviewed Elephant9’s Silver Mountain, which featured guitarist Reine Fiske (of Dungen, Landberk, Morte Macabre, Träd Gräs och Stenar, and many others). The following January, just a few months shy of his 70th birthday, master guitarist Terje Rypdal was sitting in with Elephant9 at a series of shows that yielded the recordings for this release. If one doesn’t know Rypdal, there are about forty solo albums to choose from and even more if you count the collaborations and groups he’s recorded with, but my personal favorites are his three ECM label solo albums from the mid-70s: Whenever I Seem to Be Far Away, Odyssey, and After the Rain. But his work on the album at hand sounds nothing like those — that was a long time ago! Elephant9 is the psychedelic-jazz-progressive rock trio of Ståle Storløkken (electric piano, organ, and Mellotron) and the formidable rhythm section of Nikolai Hængsle and Torstein Lofthus (bass and drums respectively) who have been playing together since around 2006. Storløkken has also playes on several of Rypdal’s recent recordings (Vossabrygg, Crime Scene, and Conspiracy among them), so there’s the connection. The set opens with the 22-plus minute “Cover the Mountain Top,” originally from their first album, with a lengthy keyboard intro which is delicately adorned by guitar and guitar feedback; the rhythm section lies low for the first five minutes then enters quietly behind Storløkken and Rypdal’s musings, building slowly, until all hell breaks loose at the nine-minute point, the quartet cycling between loud and heavy / soft and delicate for the remainder of its duration. The second track “Dodovoodoo” also comes from their first recording, and also takes up an entire album side, a more frenzied and adventurous piece where the full quartet keeps the fire going all the way through. The second LP contains four shorter performances (between five and twelve minutes) but no less frenetic, drawing mostly from E9’s first two albums, with “Psychedelic Backfire” from the Atlantis album being the exception, an exceptionally heavy rocker where the entire quartet acquits themselves superbly. This is one exceptional release that just blows my socks off; catching fire indeed! Can’t recommend this enough.

Filed under: Archives, 2024 releases, 2017 recordings

Related artist(s): Terje Rypdal, Elephant9

More info
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