Exit! cover
Released

On Friday the 13th, 2012, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling, and drummer Andreas Werliin, aka Fire!, already plenty powerful as a trio, decided to see what they could accomplish as a 27-member improvising big band: two dozen musicians (six reeds, five brass, three guitarists, three keyboardists, four bassists, four drummers) and three vocalists, performing a 45-minute epic split into two side-long chunks. There are some fierce solos, but this is no mere slab of blare; it’s a slow-burning groove orchestrated like a 1970s Lalo Schifrin movie score, with poetic lyrics (delivered by Sofia Jernberg) and a four-bass, four-drums pulse like a whale’s heartbeat.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Search cover

Search

Joel Harrison 7
Metatron cover

Metatron

Richard Pinhas
10 cover

10

Supersilent
Translinear Light cover

Translinear Light

Alice Coltrane
Kulma cover

Kulma

Pan Sonic
Smoke Stack cover

Smoke Stack

Andrew Hill
Conversations II cover

Conversations II

Kikanju Baku, Roscoe Mitchell, Craig Taborn
Manhattan Dialogues cover

Manhattan Dialogues

Phil Markowitz, David Liebman
Homing cover

Homing

J.A. Granelli & Mr. Lucky