Recording of the Week, Magnus Öström Group - A Room For Travellers

Swedish drummer Magnus Öström is back with his fourth solo album A Room For Travellers (Jazzland), offering a transparent look at climate emergency as a cause for alarm. Perhaps best known for his work with the groundbreaking Esbjörn Svensson Trio up until leader-Svensson’s tragic and untimely death in a 2008 diving accident, Öström re-emerged in in 2011 with Thread of Life, decisively setting up camp towards the rockier-side of the sonic spectrum. Throughout the following years, however, he has always retained an atmospheric sense of space, which comes to the foreground here on A Room For Travellers. Despite its bold red artwork, the album is in fact green-coated in its thoughtful introspection.

Over the course of his previous three albums, the drummer has regarded the music he creates as an expression of his being, wrapped up in his overall personality and identity. In a similar vein, A Room For Travellers is characterised by a lack of harmonic complexity, with Öström’s compositions intuitively focused more on moods and colours than on chords per se. Again, his tunes are more intricate in their rhythmic sense than their harmonic one, yet the sonic profile of each track is nevertheless suited for what the Swede has set out to achieve with the help of his group.

As the liner notes indicate, the album’s tracks are more like suites than individual songs, and the mixture of the bandleader’s production and compositional sensibilities certainly attest to this appraisal. Environmentally aware, its themes flow as wide as the ocean itself. Öström has stated on record his deep concern about the human impact on nature, particularly in regards to water pollution. But this is not the battle cry of a virtue-signalling eco-warrior; rather, the hopeful manner in which his arrangements build up is rich and well-executed, with the ensemble working flawlessly to bring his vision courageously to life.

This album carefully finds its footing, as the cautious slow-burning opener ‘Safe And Sound’ demonstrates, introducing us to the musicians one by one then breaking out into a joyous metric game. ‘FlowFly’ carries a rhythmic ostinato over which guitarist Andreas Hourdakis gallantly shimmers. ‘On The High In My Life’ marks a change in pace as the group adopt a swifter, up-beat tempo that charges along nicely. The opening piano riff delivers a hybrid of gospel and carnivalesque-soul that’ll keep you bobbing as you attempt to anticipate the tricky time-signature, before a dark cloudburst from the subterranean moog-bass gives way to an ethereal sense of ambient piano-led light from Daniel Karlsson. By the time the wordless vocal textures kick in on the final chorus, the group’s magic has already lulled you into a sense of hypnotic bliss. The pianist is given another chance to shine on the softly serene ‘All Those Years’, which closes the album. A laconic ballad, it offers a chance for some reflection amidst a moment of poignancy.

Despite a lack of lyrics or other qualities one would normally associate with jazz such as wind and brass instruments, Öström’s work remains a convincingly sentimental and emotional listen. His distinctive feel for rhythm at first glance may appear confusing, but never convoluted. The deliberateness of this album’s message certainly comes across, with the average track length clocking in at six-and-a-half minutes that leaves plenty of room for pondering within the auditory corridors of this magnificent construction – a personal best in his post-e.s.t. career.