Daniel Karlsson Trio - Ding Dong (2017)

The Daniel Karlsson Trio have since their album debut Das Taxibåt in September 2013 established themselves as one of the most interesting constellations in Swedish jazz. Not least through the magnificent hat trick brought home by their sophomore release Fusion for Fish, released in August 2014. The album ended up winning the Swedish Radio’s Jazz Group of the Year Award 2014, Swedish jazz magazine OJ’s Golden Disc 2015 as well as the Swedish Jazz Grammy 2015. Ears have been opened abroad as well, their music met with press accolades and frequent airplay in Germany, but also in the UK and Ireland.

This does not mean that the trio are resting on their laurels. New music has been recorded through the Fall of 2014 and the Spring of 2015 on the island of Runmarö in the Stockholm archipelago and then honed to perfection at the brus & knaster studio in Stockholm. The result is now ready to be sent off into the world.

On this, their third outing, there’s a also new member in the band. Double bass player Kristian Lind has moved to Turkey and has been replaced by his namesake Christian Spering, an outstanding musician and an exceptionally well known name for those in the know of the Swedish jazz scene. As always the new album contain a collection of exciting original compositions by Daniel Karlsson. Nine new songs (we had to drop one title on the LP version) with a more or less pronounced lucullic theme apparent in the song titles. Soundwise there is no reason to worry, the trio’s distinctive characteristics are very much in place, only even more so this time around. A slew of analogue synthesizers and a rare instrument in jazz settings, the Mellotron, frequently adding to the soundscape. This is not a first in jazz however, Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi years of the early 70s featured Mellotron on both the Crossings and Sextant albums.

The preeminent guitarist Andreas Hourdakis makes cameos on two tracks just as on Fusion for Fish and Daniel’s sister, Rebecka Karlsson, baroque violinist, is also featured on one track.

And as on Fusion for Fish the brilliant artist Richard Johansson has lent us one of his out of this world oil paintings for the cover.