The Knapsack, The Hat and The Horn bring together a free improvising, acoustic and unamplified Nordic trio featuring Norwegian, Copenhagen-based young guitarist Hein Westgaard (who plays in the post-minimalistic quartet Ototoi and leads his own trio), American, Stockholm-based violinist Katt Hernandez and Swedish, Heby-based master drummer Raymond Strid. The album was recorded in a single day in Gävle, Sweden, by another great Swedish drummer, Jon Fält.

The title of the album is taken from a lesser-known Brothers Grimm story about one of three brothers who venture into the forest and discover different objects with magical properties, eventually making him the ruler of the entire kingdom. Westgaard, Hernandez and Strid create a lively and untimely forest of sounds and melodies, rich with psychedelic and hypnotic folk motifs (and even country-like on «Als Cowboy Verkleidet»), chamber, free improvisation and abstract sonic territories.

Westgaard, who initiated this trio, says that he wanted to explore the fragile sonic possibilities where the improvising fingerpicked, acoustic steel string guitar, violin and drums complement each other and where the percussiveness of the drums and the sustained notes and sounds of the violin and the guitar finding itself somewhere in the middle. The dynamics of the trio are emphatic and democratic, relying on deep listening, and allowing Westgaard, Hernandez and Strid to weave together subtle, melodic veins balanced with more adventurous and experimental sound-searching journeys, all performed with great focus on detail.

Eyal Hareuveni

Hein Westgaard (acoustic steel string guitar), Raymond Strid (drums), Katt Hernandez (violin)