Moskus’ Mestertyven (Norwegian for ‘Master Thief’), the piano trio’s second album to be released in the UK on 19 May is endearingly ramshackle as I suppose you could put it, ‘Fjesing’ disappearing almost before you know it’s there. Pianist Anja Lauvdal, bassist Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson, and drummer Hans Hulbækmo create open free improv flavours on this latest album from the young trio recorded in a 17th century wooden church in small town southern Norway, Lauvdal’s upright piano jangling away and emerging towards the end of ‘Tandem med Sankt Peter’ via an unlikely rickety route. Lauvdal reminds me a little of pianist Alcyona Mick and shares with the Birmingham-schooled player the same sense of adventure and expressive enterprise Alcyona often displays with her band Blink. With Moskus bass and drums are fairly rudimentary, maybe deliberately, but all three come together as a group more than effectively. While the album (Hubro ***1/2) meanders a bit it gains a new vigour on ‘Rullings’ and moves into its own engrossing space from thereon in coalescing for maximum impact with the Carla Bley-like glow of ‘Leverpostei med brie’ (erm... ‘Liver pate with brie’) with the melodic side of the trio then beginning to spread all over in the last few tracks.
Listen to ‘Tandem med Sankt Peter’ from Mestertyven above