You immediately know that what you hear is the massive, muscular double bass lines of Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, even before you realize that he is propelling his (Exit) Knarr sextet. That is how Fly, the fifth album of this band, Håker Flaten’s main musical vehicle in recent years, begins. This album captured (Exit) Knarr at full force, live at the end of a seven-date tour at Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene in Oslo in September 2025.
The current lineup of (Exit) Knarr may be the strongest to date. It features Danish, Oslo-based alto and baritone sax player Amalie Dahl; Polish Falten’s frequent collaborator, Berlin-based pianist Marta Warelis; American Austin-based guitarist Jonathan F. Horne (who plays in Flaten’s The Young Mothers); Norwegian tenor sax player and electronics player Karl Hjalmar Nyberg; and drummer Olaf Olsen.
The album features four pieces. The opening title piece reflects on jazz history, and as Peter Margasak noted in his liner notes, it brings to mind the passion and wildness of the best Mingus groups, and quotes ideas from (Exit) Knarr’s «Free the Jazz» and «Hilma» (from Breezy, Sonic Transmission, 2024). The following piece, «Breezy» (also the album by the same name), is dedicated to the late American trumpeter Jaimie Branch, a close friend and collaborator of Håker Flaten, whose band was called Fly or Die. (Exit) Knarr clearly flies high with fiery intensity in this performance with an uplifting, irreverent spirit, similar to Branch’s free spirit.
Already in these powerful pieces, you can feel how (Exit) Knarr is bigger than its parts. Dahl and Warelis are two of the most promising, wise, and fearless voices of European free music, and as Margasak observed, both share a holistic embrace of jazz history. Horne adds a thorny, sharp edge, while Nyberg cleverly complements Dahl’s sax front, and Olsen solidifies Håker Flaten’s kicking rhythm section.
The reserved and contemplative «Austian Birds» is a reworking of «Austin Vibes» (from Drops, Sonic Transmissions, 2025), with field recordings Håker Flaten recorded from the porch of his old home in Austin, and a remarkable solo piano of Warelis that captures the disorienting, emotional storm of this piece. This great performance ends with «Chaos Pad» (from Live at artacts ´22. Idyllic Noise, 2024), with Håker Flaten’s double bass dictating an infectious rhythmic pattern, and together with Horne’s Effects-laden guitar, pushes all to their wildest, cathartic climax.
Eyal Hareuveni
Amalie Dahl (alto saxophone, baritone saxophone), Karl Hjalmar Nyberg (tenor saxophone, electronics), Marta Warelis (piano), Jonathan F. Horne (guitar), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), Olaf Olsen (drums)
