Moskus - Ulv Ulv [Hubro Music]

Put on the circuit via the Norwegian imprint Hubro Music in late April was "Ulv Ulv", the third album effort released by the trio Moskus comprised of Anja Lauvdal, Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson and Hans Hulbækmo which are joined by Nils Øklund on Hardanger fiddle in two of the ten album tracks. Whilst the opener "Medstrøms" starts with a harp-driven, inward looking and slightly romantic feel we see the follow up "Angelfossen" sinking deeply into foggy, autumnal melancholia represented by inertial chords before "Noe Med Utopia, Klondike" delivers a more lively, yet somewhat alien take on off-kilter Piano Jazz with a bit of a Bossa-infusion. "Den Store Skjønnheten" wallows in lovely Bar Jazz romanticisms for rainy sunday afternoons, a journey continued by the epic slow motion beauty of "Chimes / Gullregn" which is picking up a little pace over the course of 376 seconds total runtime and "Kullgraver" seems to focus on the slightly humor'esque aspects of randomly jamming on off-tune instruments to create a certain kind of twisted, stumbling and improvised Jazz Funk for parties taken over by obviously drunk cartoon characters  of some sorts. "We Will Always Love You Too, Whitney Houston" is nothing less than a harmonium sporting Dark Jazz homage to the queen of high end drama, the 42 seconds of "Gramjeger" are a sweet, playful interlude also appealing to those loving the more electronic, yet mostly friendly approach of the Rephlex label whilst "Borre, Borre Gulleple, Slå Vekk" sharpens our senses and instincts with a subtle, yet inherent feel of tension and awe like one would feel when exploring deep primeval forests, emphasized by dramatic military drums coming into play throughout the last quarter of the tracks close to 10 minutes runtime and the closing tune "Ei Signekjerring" deals with reprocessed FM modulations or modular synthesis of some sorts, using them as a more lively base for decent chord improvisations and magical, charming wind instruments waving goodbye to the listener in a quite sad, romantic feel evoking memories of black and white nature shots from the very early days of cinematic work. Defo an interesting and well varied body of work in this one!

Album artwork on Instagram!