Superposition is new jazz quartet from Helsinki, and their debut album is out today(27 March) on the We Jazz Label. It’s led by drummer Olavi Louhivouri – a man who, apart from his solo work, is known for his his band Odderrang and his work with the likes of Tomasz Stanko, Ilmiliekki Quartet and Alexi Tuomarila. He’s joined by Linda Fredriksson (Mopo) and Adele Sauros on saxes and Mikael Saastamoinen (OK:KO) on bass.
It’s a record that sways through emotion, and sparkles with ideas and inventive patterns and melodies and arrangements, the two Saxophones often together, exploring sides of modern jazz with elements of free jazz pushing its way out of the structure. The eight tracks that make up the album are all self composed, six from Louhivuori and one each from Frederiksson and Saatamoinen,
It’s a record that explores the diversity of not only the quartet, but of elements such as tempo and emotion. Opener Antiplace sets the scene, which after its straight up opening veers off into these furious almost free jazz solos, excitedly jumping around, before it settles down to a gentle swaying figure.
Much of the record from there on has a calmness about it, all pastoral soundscapes mixed in with the saxophones arching melodies over the top here, and moments of excited babbling there. There’s moments of beauty scattered all over the record, from the renaissance like dance of Choral, to the drip fed melodies of Miimo, to the changes of mood and pace that purvey Wasteland.
By the time the record concludes with March, in truth more of a saunter – a heartbreaking one at that, that seems deliciously sudden in its ending, there’s been more than enough there – in terms of excitement, emotion, melody and its magnetic inventiveness, to warrant repeated listens.
