Recording of the Week, Hedvig Mollestad & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, 'Maternity Beat'

Hedvig Mollestad (centre) with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra (Photo by Veronica Van Groningen)

Garnering fans from both jazz and psych rock circles, electric guitarist Hedvig Mollestad’s music draws just as much from the sound of small jazz ensembles as it does garage power trios, with both distorted guitar riffs and freewheeling improvisation at the centre of her compositions. She’s enjoyed a steady upwards trajectory since being awarded Molde International Jazz Festival’s prize for Young Jazz Talent back in 2009, signing to Norway’s home for experimental instrumental music Rune Grammofon soon after and making her 2011 trio debut with Shoot!.

While Mollestad has been releasing music with her own trio since the early 2010s, Maternity Beat marks her third release as a ‘solo’ artist, and much like 2020’s Ekhidna and 2021’s Tempest Revisited this new album sees her broadening her instrumental palette further – this time with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. Commissioned by the Molde Festival and recorded in October 2021 after two live performances, the piece is the latest work in the TJO’s historical tradition of artist collaborations, including Chick Corea, Jason Moran and Marius Neset. While with her longstanding trio project Mollestad tends to revel in the simplicity offered by a rock power trio, her solo-penned projects often have her experimenting with different kinds of ensembles, and with Maternity Beat she presents her most diverse set of sounds to date.

As the title probably suggests, Maternity Beat sees Mollestad continuing the thread of motherhood she began exploring more tenuously on Ekhidna, which ends up bringing many different flavours of emotion to the table. After the subtle drone-rooted melody of ‘On the Horizon (Part 1)’ the band kick into gear with some awesome syncopated riffs on the second part of the track, with the kick drum punctuated by the low brass while the trumpets double Mollestad’s guitar leads. More hard-rocking takes include ‘All Flights Cancelled’, originally featured on Ding Dong. You’re Dead., getting a full band re-working that delves into more spacious textures, while ‘Donna Ovis Peppa’ explores more erratic, dissonant melodies with an extended improvisatory passage from the group’s violinist.

(Photo by Petter Sele)

Maternity Beat certainly makes for Mollestad’s most vivid and colourful musical canvas so far; while she’s still happy to entertain her harder-rocking sensibilities, just as much attention is paid to the tranquil spoken-word passages like ‘Her Own Shape’ and ‘Little Lucid Demons’, while even these are peppered with little harmonic touches and maintain a rhythmic backbone. The title track is actually one of the more eerie numbers on the record, while the proceeding ‘Maternity Suite’ ramps up the tempo in the album’s final moments, with the record feeling surprisingly varied.

Mollestad’s first recording with a large jazz orchestra is certainly a winner, and it won’t be the last time she works with the Molde Jazz Festival either; Mollestad has been selected to be the festival’s Artist in Residence next year, a title worth bragging about since she’s now in the company of John Zorn (who held it this year), Chick Corea (2000) and Pat Metheny (2001). In the meantime, we’ve got Maternity Beat to more than tide us over.