Kommun is the experimental chamber ensemble of Swedish, Stockholm-based guitarist Finn Loxbo, expanded on its sophomore album, Kalpa, from a quartet to sextet, and featuring Loxbo playing acoustic steel string guitar, pianist Lisa Ullén, violinist Anna Lindal, cellist Leo Svensson Sander, double bass player Vilhelm Bromander, and drummer Ryan Packard. This ensemble deepens Loxbo’s concepts introduced on Kommun’s debut album Ephemeralds (Fönstret, 2023).

Kalpa offers a minimalist and sparse piece investigating the tension between the experience of circular time, an elongated now, and the expectations contained within linear perception of time. Kommun also explores the tension between the individual voices and the collective meaning-making. The ensemble collectively improvises on phrases that are born together and continue to develop the phrases in a cyclic, patient, and Sisyphian manner until they fold and dissolve into themselves.

Lindal and Svensson’s addition to the ensemble enriches its tonal palette, and adds depth and complexity to its fragmented and disorienting collective sound, performed with a spontaneous, real-time sensibility of an instant composition. Kalpa emphasizes the ensemble’s focused and methodical exploration of just intonation, harmonic tension, and improvisational structure.

Eyal Hareuveni

Finn Loxbo (acoustic steel string guitar), Lisa Ullén (grand piano), Anna Lindal (violin), Leo Svensson Sander (cello), Vilhelm Bromander (double bass), Ryan Packard (drums)