I discovered Elephant9 a couple years ago via the great and powerful algorithm. Spotify was playing in the house while I did my Friday afternoon cleaning. Not sure what I was listening to, but it ended so the great Spotify algorithm started spitting like-minded artists out at me. One was a song called “Sojourn” by Elephant9. It stuck out as this moody, melancholy instrumental that grabbed my attention right away. I wrote the name down so I wouldn’t forget it and moved on.
After a week or two I looked up the band and the album that song was off, called Arrival Of The New Elders. Elephant9 are a Norwegian 3-pc that consists of keyboardist Ståle Storløkken, bassist Nikolai Hængsle, and drummer Torstein Lofthus. Their sound is a mix of jazz, fusion, prog, and plenty of psychedelic swirl to give everything a kind of ‘CTI Records meets acid freakout’ with moments of calm, ethereal beauty. There’s touches of Marc Moulin’s Placebo with bits of The Eleventh House and Mwandishi-era Herbie. But their music also touches on the cosmic and sci-fi as well.
Arrival of the New Elders became one of my favorite albums of 2022(it came out in 2021.) Imagine my excitement when I saw they released a new album in April(go on, imagine it.) Mythical River picks up where Elders left off, but with more of an emphasis on subtler melodic turns and experimental dissonance thrown in. A smorgasbord of Scandinavian fusion/funk with a twist of LSD thrown in for good measure. It’s another stunning album of jazz-meets-psych-meets-groove.
The album opens with “Solitude In Limbo #2”, a humid, low key affair that’s moody, mysterious, and vast. Like looking through a telescope and seeing a distant universe through the lens. Title track “Mythic River” is up next. This is an organ-led track that lingers in the air with a kind of alien beauty. It’s one of the more somber works from Elephant9, and it’s quite stunning. “Party Among The Stars” jumps from the speakers in a caffeinated freak out. These are three musicians that know their way around their instruments, bringing to mind the great Medeski, Martin, and Wood and the more far out and funky works of Jimmy Smith in the early 70s.
If Elephant9 was all bombast and freak out space jazz it would still be impressive, but not as engaging. Elephant9 add nuance, mood, and sometimes a sense of quiet contemplation in the work. “Chamber of Silence” hovers in mystery, while “Heading For Desolate Wastelands” moves along slowly and with a sense of purpose. “Cavern of the Red Lion” has a keyboard part that sounds like a guitar eating itself alive(check out the great Psicomagia for reference). It’s esoteric, cinematic, and makes its way to an almost Herbie and Headhunters jam.
Mythical River continues to see Elephant9 evolve their sound without ever losing the fire and fury that’s kept them fueled for nearly 20 years. Mythical River is heady and progressive and of the best albums of 2024.
Complex Distractions 