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Kevin Kastning / Bruno Råberg — Across Tall Rain
(Greydisc no#, 2026, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-05-01

Across Tall Rain Cover art

Bruno Råberg is a Swedish bassist who has been working from the United States since 1981; he’s also a teacher at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute and at Berklee College of Music in Boston, in addition to being a regular collaborator with guitarist Kevin Kastning. Recent releases like Intervallum and Silent Dimensions have been reviewed in Exposé in the last few years. Kastning is a unique guitarist and musical instrument inventor whom we have covered regularly going back to his 2007 and 2008 collaborations with Sandor Szabó Resonance and Parallel Crossings, although he has been releasing original material going back to the late 80s. For this recording, Råberg plays double bass and Kastning plays 36-string double contraguitar, 16-string sub-contraguitar, 24-string sub-contraguitar, and 28-string contraguitar — for an idea of what all these unique instruments look like (and their tunings), jump over to Kastning’s website and specifically the ‘instruments’ page. The seven pieces herein range from interludes of barely over a minute to longer pieces of six or seven minutes, some seem to be composed, or at least planned, while others tend to have the spark of pure improvisation. no clues are given, and both musicians seem to be giving everything they’ve got, and it varies from gentle and majestic to what might seem like a fairly wild ride. Råberg uses the full range of bass techniques throughout as required, and there are also percussive elements, although one is never sure which player is providing them; they tend to occur when the bassist is most busy, presumably leaving it to Kastning. Overall it’s kind of a short album, around 29 minutes total, but there’s so much going musically that most listeners might not even notice. The label assures us that more collaborative projects between Kastning and Råberg are underway, something more to look forward to.

Filed under: New releases, 2026 releases

Related artist(s): Kevin Kastning

More info
http://kevinkastning.bandcamp.com/album/across-tall-rain

 

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