Reviews

‘Here, the subject is improvisation. Most of the time, the trio works from basic themes, original compositions by Dyberg; and sometimes, the three musicians also explore free improvisation, without any previous premise. The compositions are interesting, grab the listener and serve as a framework for the trio to explore new directions. The trio Dyberg (sax) / Thomsen (double bass) / Forchhammer (drums) work in a great interplay, establishing interesting dialogues between the instruments. It’s music that evolves, that starts off with its feet on the ground, but quickly transforms to take flight. If the album starts with the trio showing off their vibrant dynamics, in songs like “Mullet” and “Timestrecht”, we also find darker moments throughout the album; in “Dedication to Victims of War” we hear a solo by Dyberg in the form of a lament; and “Solidarity”, a brief saxophone solo, closes the album, acting as a final plea. A great contemporary jazz record with different colors’ – Nuno Catarino, Revistajazz.pt (Excerpt)

‘Danish alto-saxophonist Mia Dyberg is a philosophical time-traveller,
a linear assassin forever ready to toss ol’ Cronos a compositional
curveball in her quest for gracefully complex systems of clock-beating
abstraction. Her debut album on Clean Feed, 2018’s Ticket!, was a
William S Burroughs-indebted boon, inspired by that Beat Gen icon’s
cut-up tactics to instigate an explosive, expressionist suite of fresh
jazz futures founded on an idiosyncratic archive of shattered pasts and
mutant dreams.

With her remarkable follow-up, Timestretch, Dyberg delves deeper
still into the realms of temporal dislocation. Alongside fellow
countrymen Asger Thomsen and Simon Forchhammer, she draws on theories of
relativity, the abiding nowhere zones of nunc stans, Schoenbergian
sequential dilation and the wake-up-calls of German-American political
thinker Hannah Arendt for a riveting cycle of compositions and
collective improvisations, a delicious concatenation that comes alive in
its loose-limbed rhythmical exchanges and understated melodicism.

This is a beguiling collection where subtle tone clusters are
seemingly constrained in aspic one moment, luxuriating in an elusive
infinity the next. Dyberg, Thomsen and Forchhammer, prominent players on
the Copenhagen and Berlin scenes, exorcise all the unnecessary here,
intrepidly anointing their tender lyricism in pregnant pauses and
tension-fuelled intervals, as considered contributions gather
significance and potency in the mirror of the ma, with brass-derived
gasps, and bass ostinatos fluttering like parades of batting eyelashes,
framed and intensified in absorbing counter-space.

Dyberg surgically subverts any preconceived notions of the jazz trio,
splintering her formation into its constituent parts, breaking away for
a harrowing solo plea during ‘Dedication To Victims Of War’,
instigating a daring extra-terrestrial cat-and-mouse of extended
techniques between Thomsen and Forchhammer, before reconvening for the
groove-hugging swing of Thomsen’s ‘Mullet’ and the heartbreakingly
poignant ‘Voldsomt Ritardando’ (dedicated to Dyberg’s mother and aunts).
Timestretch is a profoundly intrepid work, teeming with big,
progressive ideas. That Dyberg and company marshal these concepts so
lucidly, so resourcefully, is testament to their combined focus, vision
and winning virtuosity. — Spencer Grady

‘Bebop inspired beat authors to invest their writing with more rhythm, soul, spontaneity and unpredictability. Now, the Mia Dyberg Trio, a collection of Danish and Norwegian musicians with strong connections to Berlin’s improvised music scene, brings things back around by claiming the influence of beat writer William S. Burroughs. In addition to working through the varied dimensions of his oeuvre, Burroughs was a vivid performer, a serpentine narrator, a bone-dry comic and an unsparing truth-teller. The trio’s music, whether composed by alto saxophonist Dyberg and bassist Asger Thomsen or collectively improvised, matches its inspira- tion with impact and clearly has the edge when it comes to lucidity. Thomsen has a strong instinct for structure, which ensures direction and cohesiveness, even during the music’s most free-flowing moments.The saxophonist’s adroit phrasing and tonalflexibility express a variety of moods and tex- tures quite clearly, and her melodic imagination ensures that each gesture lands with emotion. “Party Ist Vorbei” captures the reflective mel-ancholy one might experience when a long eve- ning’s fun winds down; “Claws Out” stretches and twists with feline elasticity. Ultimately, it matters less that one can spot the literary influence here than the music suc- ceeding on its own merits. With its strong writ- ing, responsive interaction and expressive play- ing, the trio delivers’. — Bill Meyer DownBeat Magazine

‘The young generation of ‘free’ musicians can build on their predecessors’ achievements. They are free(d) to switch between different modes of playing and create their own voice, throws and furrow of sound and music: THIS TRIO – highly energetic, bold, subtle, wild, melodic, far out, far in, visceral and emergence of deep groove ….’— Henning Bolte All About Jazz

“We get some songs that are a bit reminiscent of Henry Threadgill’s AIR trio, while other things are quite stripped down and at the much more free-spirited end of the jazz scale. But all the time it sounds fine. Mia Dyberg is an original alto saxophonist, who has good ideas both in composition and improvisation. Thomsen has a lovely “voice” in the bass. A trio to follow further’ — Jan Granlie, Salt Peanuts

‘Danish alto saxophonist Mia Dyberg is a bracing and exciting musician who uses the influence of William Burroughs to create a memorable and thought provoking album of free jazz. She is in fine company with Asger Thomsen on bass and Dag Magnus Narvesen on drums. “Ticket” begins the album with raw saxophone and bass in open space, probing the silence for an opening. The drums crash in and the music lunges forward in a predatory fashion, building to an exciting collective improvisation of thick elastic bass, ripe saxophone and drums. The music becomes very exciting with gales of saxophone pushing the band forward relentlessly amidst thrashing percussion and stoic bass. There is a swooping and free sounding nature to “Wil’s Swing” with long tones of saxophone against deft bass playing, though the entry of the drums is the cue to unleash the full power of the trio, with Dyberg’s rending howls approaching Pharoah Sanders territory, and her inventive use of sounds that are released from restraint makes this track particularly thrilling. There is a rattling, clanking drum feature akin to controlled chaos that is tethered to the saxophone by the unflappable bass planing. “Mia’s Pulse” continues mining this vast sound the trio achieves, as she leaps with abandon along with the bowed bass and drums creating waves of sound that course forward from the band. Another short track, “Claws Out” is a potent collective improvisation that gives each member equal footing in a sharp blast of concentrated energetic free jazz. “Topical” builds its own majestic pace through strong interplay between deeply toned alto saxophone, tight bass and drumming that opens a subtle pocket which is perfect for exploration. The longest performance on the album, “The First Track,” is among its most memorable, with the group developing a firm rhythmic foundation that allows for unrestrained expression by each member and the trio as a whole. Dyberg gets a rich and emotional tone from her instrument which gives her a unique sound while the bass playing is thick and powerful, and the drumming free ranging and unpredictable. The music gradually builds becoming faster and stronger as the group whips up a frenzy of resonant improvisation, dynamically moving between full out blowing and abstract improvisation. The album ends with the blistering act of free fun called “How Do You Know When You Are Through?” where they through caution into the wind for an all out blast that abruptly cuts off as if they had reached orbital velocity and slipped the bonds of Earth entirely’ — Tim Niland, Jazz and Blues Blogspot