Johan Lindvall Trio – This Is Not About You

Jazzland

With Johan Lindvall‘s latest trio recording, the players expand upon the ground covered in 2019’s No City, No Tree, No Lake, but take Johan’s agitated precision in slightly darker and rather dreamier directions.

The pieces on this album were all written by Johan around the piano, but the interplay between the three hints at the importance of each element. At points, piano, bass and drums are pecking and jabbing at one another, causing ruffled feathers and little collisions; while at others they sit back from one another, allowing space and time to intertwine with the playing and allowing the listener to interweave their own impressions.

They are a jazz trio at the end of the day and and “Give Up” lays a classic slinky bass line over which the piano lays an oddly echoing freewheel that is subtle; the amused looks on their faces in the album photographs definitely leach into their style of playing. It feels as though this is for their own amusement and it is just a real bonus that the listener can find so much of appeal to the end result.

There is a playfulness in the piano delivery, the tone of which is high and light, but often produces what you are least expecting. Adrian Myhr‘s bass meanwhile is fleet-footed and content to put an arm around the shoulder of the piano and indulge its wilder impulses. All this is joined together by Andreas Skår Winther‘s textural drums that hint at rhythm, but are more interested in hints and flourishes that sketch the backdrop in impressionistic, springlike tones.

Their fit is sometimes awkward, but there is a purpose to that awkwardness that you gradually understand as the album progresses. It is as if they are so happy playing together that they just need to add a touch of drama or intrigue to offset things. You can almost feel the worry at the passing of time in the scurrying pace of “Listen”, while the dreamy warmth of “Getting Out” is more like a blanket with the roll and patter of the drums a soothing massage after a hard day. This ability to swing from mood to mood makes for an enjoyable journey and the tracks often finish when you are least expecting it, leaving you keen for more.

There are Erik Satie-like interludes that unfurl like an autumn morning and they are not unfamiliar with the late-night melancholy of nursing a coffee at 3am in a dingy back street bar, pondering the world and its complicated meanderings. Towards the end, an enthusiastic crowd spurs the players on and seem to lend them a little more momentum, this time driven by Andreas’s percussive initiative. He pushes the other two on, his rhythm clattering like coffee cups on tabletops, bells seemingly ringing in unison.

The gradual build and the repetitive motifs of piano and bass are a tasty vision of another face of the trio but; before you know it, This Is Not About You comes to a pleasant halt. This is a delight of an album that is vibrant yet somehow makes you ponder, and that can only be a good thing.

-Mr Olivetti-