The Swedish, Gothenburg-based band Natural Artefacts began twenty-five years ago as an electroacoustic, free improvised, collaborative sonic lab of electronics player-composer Per Anders Nilsson (and former jazz sax player), pianist-electronics player Susanna Lindeborg and tenor sax and electronics player Ove Johansson. After Johansson’s passing in 2015, Lindeborg and Nilsson began the new phase of Natural Artefacts, with Estonia-born guitarist Merje Kägu, sax player Thomas Jäderlund (of Cool Funeral Beer Band, and his own trio TJAT), and percussionist Anton Jonsson. This new quintet recorded its first album, The Crux (LJ, 2018).
Signs and Symbols is the fifth album of Natural Artefacts. It was recorded at Studio Epidemin in Gothenburg in December 2022 and November 2023. Natural Artefacts still plays minimalist, atmospheric electroacoustic jazz, spiced with free jazz, experimental electronica and contemporary music. Signs and Symbols offers eleven loose and open textures composed by Lindeborg and Nilsson (except one piece by Kägu and another one by Jonsson), consciously challenging the classic jazz rhythm section, and suggesting an organic integration of the acoustic instruments and the electronics. Nilsson acts here as a virtual electronic bass player who plays fixed figures or bass lines created in real time by pre-programmed algorithms, implemented on an Octatrack sampler/sequencer and the analog synth Nord Lead A1.
Now, Natural Artefacts sounds like an experimental jam band, more adventurous, more sound-oriented, with more futurist, edgy electronics, and equipped with the wisdom to conclude its open improvisation when its basic themes are exhausted. But, still, rooted in the seminal funky-jam grooves of Miles Davis Bitches Brew band, naturally, with typical Nordic lyricism and restraint.
Eyal Hareuveni
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Man kan roligt kalde den svenske musiker Susanna Lindeborg en pioner i nordisk musik når det kommer til at indkorporer electronics i sin musik. Hun startede sin tid gruppen Mwendo Dawa sammen med sin, nu afdøde husbond, saxofonisten Ove Johansson. L og J, som er forbogstaverne i deres efternavne, medfødte navnet på deres pladeselskab, LJ Records. Herfra er der udgivet mange plader med Mwendo Dawa, plader under Lindeborgs eget navn og så Natural Artefacts, der startede som et samarbejde mellem Lindeborg og Johansson og Per Anders Nilsson.
Gruppen er fortsat efter Johanssons døsfald i 2018 med den estiske guitarist Merje Kägu, slagtøjsspilleren Anton Jonsson samt saxofonisten Thomas Jäderlund. Hvilket også er holdet bag denne nye plade med musik som blander genrer, akustiske vs. elektroniniske instrumenter, kompostioner og improvisationer.
Musikken er skrevet af henholdsvis Lindborg og Nilsson, mens alle de involverede har hver deres interlude, af meget abstrakt og ekspermenterede karakter. Generelt er musikken meget elektrisk ladet med ostinater som styrer det rytmiske fundament. Musikken er helt sin egen, men skulle man komme med referencer, så vil jeg for min del, tilskrive Herbie Hancocks «Mwandishi» og «Soft Machine». En kvalitet i sig selv.
Allan Sommer
Susanna Lindeborg (piano, electronics), Per Anders Nilsson (electronics), Anton Jonsson (drums, percussion), Merje Kägu (guitar), Thomas Jäderlund (alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone)
