When a story is good and the following one is even better you naturally expect that new narratives coming next will explode your expectations, and here it is, with a title saying it all about what you’ll find inside: “What’s Next”. And what you’ll find inside is one more aspect of a huge field of possibilities when dealing with the «neo-New Thing sensation», an expression used by the magazine Downbeat to describe what is at stake in a Friends & Neighbors record: a recriation of the free jazz spirit of the Sixties and Seventies, going from Ornette Coleman to John Carter, through Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, but with a perspective very much of the present times (at the end of the second decade of the 21st century is obvious we love melodies, and that’s what you have here: melodic free jazz) and a playing style with all the characteristics of Norwegian jazz. If you know the subgenre you’re certainly aware that free jazz is many different things, so André Roligheten, Thomas Johansson, Oscar Gronberg, Jon Rune Strom and Tollef Ostvang have a wide variety of references to tell their stories, keeping them fresh and surprising, despite all the weight of history. Yes, the Old New Thing is a New New Thing again with these five brilliant and incredibly imaginative cultural recyclers.

Tracks 1, 4, 5 and 8 by André Roligheten (TONO/NCB) | Track 2 by Jon Rune Strøm (TONO/NCB) | Tracks 3, 6 and 7 by Oscar Grönberg (TONO/NCB)

Recorded February 8th and 9th, 2018 by Dag Erik Johansen and Kai Andersen at Athletic Sound, Halden, Norway | Mixed by Ingar Hunskaar, Oslo, Norway | Mastered by Fridtjof Lindeman at Strype Audio, Oslo, Norway
Produced by Friends & Neighbors | Executive production by Trem Azul | Design by Travassos