Står op med solen (Rising with the sun) is the sophomore album by Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie, led by the Danish-born, Oslo-based alto sax player-electronics player-composer-bandleader Dahl and featuring trumpeter Oscar Andreas Haug, trombonist, Jørgen Bjelkerud, double bass player Nicolas Leirtrø and drummer-percussionist Veslemøy Narvesen. The album was recorded at Flerbruket in Hemnes by (bassist) Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard in August 2023.
This quintet focuses on this album on its collective sound and incorporates influences from the rich legacy of old-school jazz and free jazz as well as seminal Scandinavian outfits like the genre-bending Mats Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra, with its infectious, uplifting rhythmic patterns (check «Eco-echoes» and «Algorythm»), or the more subtle, chamber aesthetics of the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble (check the three parts of «Står op med solen» suite and «Weltschmerz»), or the experimental musical scene of Trondheim, where the band began working in 2020.
Dahl, like on the quintet’s debut album Dafnie (Sonic Transmission, 2022), is a composer with a distinct and free-spirited voice, who has a lot to say and knows how to say it. Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie benefits from the experiences of its musicians in other local bands and from its own Europen tours in the last three years. The quintet’s dynamics are organic and democratic, with enough space for individual interpretations of Dahl’s themes, and manage to be emotional, playful, full of boundless and fresh energy, and complex at the same time. As on Dahl’s other projects, the music addresses her deep concern about the world’s ultra-capitalistic and brutal power structures of today (check «Eco-echoes» and the angry, tribal eruption of «We don’t want your stupid war»).
Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie delivers another great album, that demonstrates the passion, wisdom and emotional power of its music.
Eyal Hareuveni
Amalie Dahl (saxophone, electronics), Oscar Andreas Haug (trumpet), Jørgen Bjelkerud (trombone), Nicolas Leirtrø (double bass), Veslemøy Narvesen (drums, percussion, saw)
