Elephant9 & Reine Fiske - Silver Mountain (2015)

It's not often a "jazz" band take the big step from the club scene to a 1300 capacity rock venue like Oslo's Rockefeller. But then again, Elephant9 is not your ordinary jazz band, often being named as Norway's best live band - surely quite rare for an instrumental band - they are equally popular in jazz and rock circles. On this, their fourth studio album, Elephant9 once again join forces with Reine Fiske - the quite excellent Swedish guitarist from Dungen and The Amazing - for an epic slice of mindblowing modern rock'n'jazz prog psychedelia. "Silver Mountain" is their finest album so far, where all the parts fall into place. The core trio is still Ståle Storløkken, Nikolai Hængsle Eilertsen and Torstein Lofthus, three of Norway's finest musicians. Guest Reine Fiske brings another dimension to the band and is now so integrated that he might as well be considered a permanent member."Silver Mountain" is an epic double album containing five tracks between 10 and 22 minutes, four tracks being originals in addition to the most spaced out version of "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" you´re likely to encounter. Ståle Storløkken (Hammond Organ, Fender Rhodes, Minimoog, Prophet t8, piano) is widely considered to be the most inventive keyboard player from the fertile Norwegian jazz scene, his playing with bands like Supersilent, Humcrush, Motorpsycho, Terje Rypdal and countless others being firm testament to this. Nikolai Hængsle Eilertsen (bass, acoustic guitars) is since long a member of popular rock group Big Bang as well as Ketil Møster's quartet Møster!.Torstein Lofthus (drums) is a most versatile drummer who has done a lot of session work as well as playing in jazz, soul and rock bands, most notably blackjazzers Shining.Reine Fiske (electric and acoustic guitars) is a member of Dungen and The Amazing and has guested on two recent Motorpsycho albums. He is also heavily involved in the fine Swedish record label Subliminal Sounds. Previously said about Elephant9 Furious prog-jazz debut... woozy psychedelic... 4/5. Mojo (UK) Fabulous debut also sourcing 60s and 70s psych/cosmic rock. 4/5. Uncut (UK) Keep an eye out for Elephant9, they're amazing. Allmusic (US) Shockingly great band... highly recommended! Wayside Music (US) Bullshit free jazz rock. The Wire (UK) Tracks: Occidentali, You Are The Sunshine Of My Life, Abhartach, Kungsten, The Above Ground Sound