The Dennis Egberth Dynasty is the third album of young Swedish drummer-composer Dennis Egberth as abandleadre, now leading a jazz quintet that features Egberth’s favorite musicians – the experienced Fredrik Ljungkvist on tenor sax and clarinet, trumpeter Niklas Barnö, wurlitzer player Alex Zethson, and double bass player Joe Williamson, augmented by experimental audio-visual artist and electronics player Linus Hillborg. The album was recorded at Atlantis Studio in Stockholm in December 2023.

The album offers four compositions by Egberth. The opening, two-part hypnotic suite «PanGu: Earth and Heaven» sketches Egberth’s ambitious sonic vision. This is a modern jazz suite that blurs the distinction between the carefully notated and the spontaneously improvised, as well as between the chamber, lyrical jazz and the cosmic-spiritual jazz, spiced by the light colors of ambient, vintage electronic sounds.

The following composition, «Chichen Itza», intensifies the chill-out vibe of sensual, and lush melodies that enjoy the irresistible, hypnotic grooves of Egberth, Williamson and Zethson, and echoed beautifully by Ljungkvist and Barnö. The last compositions, «Bogey» and «Eternal Garden», offer a powerful and playful post-bop mode of the sextet with commanding, burning solos of Barnö, Hillborg and Ljungkvist. This sestet has established its own strong aesthetics, a vibrant exosysterm that is bigger than its parts.

Eyal Hareuveni

Fredrik Ljungkvist (tenor saxophone, clarinet), Niklas Barnö (trumpet), Alex Zethson (wurlitzer), Linus Hillborg (electronics), Joe Williamson (double bass), Dennis Egberth (drums)