Steam Waterfall is the second album of an extended version of Norwegian drummer-composer Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit, following More Fun Please (PNL, 2018). It is a most ambitious and quite wild 75-minute piece, combining written passages with conceptual sections, graphic scores, as well as solos and sectioned group improvisations, and featuring 25 musicians – seasoned Large Unit musicians and students of music who attended Nilssen-Love’s workshops (with three tubas and five drummers), plus three Colombian dancers (spontaneously called in on the day of performance, «with long skirts and lots of perfume») and one contemporary dancer moving between the 25 players. It was recorded live in Marmorsalen at Sentralen, during the Oslo Jazzfestival in August 2022.
Nilssen-Love says that Steam Waterfall challenges and plays with his and ours – the listeners’ – perception about what is really a performance or music and what is imagined. This piece also offered Nilssen-Love a way to process his experiences from visits to Korea, Ethiopia, and Brazil. «Steam Waterfall is a result of my attempt to question what a concert is, when it begins, and when it ends. The composition is also an attempt to question what a piece of music is. Do I define the course of the music, and/or how much can I rely on the performers to move the music forward? What is a concert? When does a concert start? Is it when you walk into the concert venue, or when the band takes the stage? When do musicians first produce sounds on their instruments? Or has it already started when you have just read about the concert and decided to go? When does it end? When the last sound is over? When does the audience start applauding? When they leave the room? Or does it go on resonating forever?»
The Extra Large Unit was spread throughout the room in a star formation, with one drummer at each point of the star. The three tuba players were placed in the middle, facing each other. Between the tubas and the rest of the ensemble, there was space for dancers to move around in a circle. There was also enough space for one dancer to move among the whole ensemble.
The first thing that the audience heard just when it entered the performance space was three mini-vibrators vibrating on three gongs. When everyone was in place, an hourglass was flipped over, and the Extra Large Unit had three minutes to play the first chord. It ended when the ensemble threw one hundred ping-pong balls at the eight gongs and around the stage, allowing the audience to pick the balls and throw them, so no one really knew when the music was over.
Obviously, the album provides only part of the experience, but it is an impressive testament to Nilssen-Love’s ever-creative and original spirit, thought-provoking but seductive, and exploratory but always playful approach, and boundless energy. Steam Waterfall is a genre-defying piece that flies with its own, unpredictable inner logic. It visits touching, lyrical territories, suggests layered, resonant rhythmic energy, and explores countless timbral possibilities in between. It is guaranteed to make you move, smile, and wonder what this musical journey was all about.
Eyal Hareuveni
Miriam Aasland (flute, piccolo flute), Heidi Sævland (alto saxophone), Jesse Schilderink (tenor saxophone), Kristoffer Alberts (tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone), Eivind Leifsen (Bb clarinet, baritone saxophone), Klaus Ellerhusen Holm (Eb clarinet. baritone saxophone), Lotte Krüger (harp), Lina Knörr (voice, flute), Tuva Victoria Lundberg Olsson (trumpet), Guro Kvåle (trombone), Emil Bø (trombone), Magnus Breivik Løvseth (tuba), Sondre Ross Folkestad (tuba), Per Åke Holmlander (tuba), Børge Brustad (viola), Kristian Enkerud Lien (acoustic guitar), Ketil Gutvik (acoustic guitar), Andrine D. Erdal (cello), Christian Meaas Svendsen (double bass), Maren Sofie Nyland Johansen (accordion), Kalle Moberg (accordion), Patrycja Wybranczyk (drums, percussion, Paiste gongs), Michael Lee Sørenmo (Korean traditional drums and gongs, hi-hat, Paiste gongs), Andreas Wildhagen (drums, percussion, Paiste gongs), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums, percussion, Paiste gongs), Alexander Aarø (dance), Lida Albarracin Søreide (dance), Ana Barragan Lid (dance), Lina Duque (dance)
