Recording of the Week, Hedvig Mollestad - Ekhidna

This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve covered jazz-rock on Presto Jazz; Matt’s recommendation a few weeks back, Sunwatchers’s Oh Yeah?, saw a neat fusion of jazz with the more avant-garde edge of rock music. This week’s recommendation, the latest album from Norwegian electric guitarist Hedvig Mollestad, is a similar stylistic combination. However, I find Mollestad’s approach to rock-via-jazz is a little more old-school, more reminiscent of the psychedelic bands of the 1970s and their modern revivalists. We covered her work a little last week as a guest musician on Per Oddvar Johansen’s The Quiet Cormorant, where her contributions showcased her affinity for both scorching lead guitar and delicate atmospheric playing. Her latest record, Ekhidna, finds the veteran Nordic guitarist outside her usual trio format, experimenting with new voices and arrangements, while sticking to her guns with her style of jazz fusion via psychedelic ‘jam band’ rock.

Mollestad is hardly a new face on the scene; she’s been playing on the Norwegian circuit for years now, and is well-versed in a variety of styles from her time leading her own Hedvig Mollestad Trio, as well as playing in the bands of pop vocalists like Jarle Bernhoft and Hilde Marie Kjersem, and being one of the many musicians of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. While previous records featured Mollestad in her trio format, she’s since scaled her group up to a sextet for Ekhidna, the music itself written as a commissioned piece for the historic Norwegian jazz festival Vossajazz with a more imposing sound in mind. Swapping out the members of her usual trio, this time around Torstein Lofthus (of progressive rock band Elephant9) is behind the kit, with additional percussion being provided by Ole Mofjell, while keyboards are handled by Marte Eberson and Erlend Slettevoll, with the lack of bass guitar supplemented by synthesiser bass. Rounding off the sextet is trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, whom Mollestad met while the two were playing for free-jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafsson’s ensemble.

While Mollestad’s melodic sensibilities are strong, she also excels in writing purely raw riffs; the track ‘A Stone’s Throw’ has hints of modern psychedelia like Earthless via jazzy syncopation and fusion chops, though where Mollestad’s music differentiates itself is by eschewing the straight 4/4 beats and lack of chord progressions, bringing less predictable rhythms and deeper harmonic colour to the sound. That being said, she happily retains the wailing distorted guitar solos of rock guitarists past. The title track comes across in much the same way, featuring a heavy down-tuned riff that wouldn’t be out of place in a Pearl Jam track, before sliding into a brass-led section that feels more akin to her jazz background. In keeping with this jazz tradition, Mollestad has never been a fan of overdubbing her recordings, preferring to have the recording represent the live sound of the band. Even so, Mollestad’s sound carries the same weight as any heavy rock record. Mollestad makes sure to allow space for dynamic tracks, too; ‘Slightly Lighter’ has shades of John McLaughlin’s solo work, while the closer ‘One Leaf Left’ also showcases the more tender side of her playing style. It’s on the closing track, too, that her arrangements make for an extra sonic experience, with the Fender Rhodes occasionally creeping through the left channel giving a very pleasing extra texture. All throughout, Mollestad and Silva play off each other as the key soloists in the group, either backing each other up with unison leads or taking turns for their own searing solos.

Perhaps I’m a little biased as an electric guitar player myself, but I find there’s plenty to love in Ekhidna, not just in Mollestad and her sextet’s playing but in the energy of the pieces. It’d be easy to label this a rock album purely based on its choice of sounds; the distorted guitars, the hard-hitting drums, but Mollestad makes plenty of musical choices that are dead giveaways that something more is going on behind the towering hard-rock riffs. Ekhidna is an absolute powerhouse of jazz-rock, with a much welcome rawness and energy from all of its players.