The Norwegian, Trondheim-based, young power trio I LIKE TO SLEEP – amplified vibes player Amund Storløkken Åse, bassist-guitarist Nicolas Leirtrø, and drummer Øyvind Leite, celebrates its tenth anniversary with a fifth and most ambitious album, Spectral Vibes. The album was recorded at Øra Studio in Trondheim in February 2025. The cover artwork of Swedish visual artist Robin Gnista corresponds with the trio’s previous covers.

Spectral Vibes expands the psychedelic and prog-rock meets free jazz, colorful formula of I LIKE TO SLEEP. It offers a celebratory collage of both unused and fresh ideas, gathered over the past few years while writing and touring their commissioned composition «Pieces of Scattered Dreams» for the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, yet to be released.

I LIKE TO SLEEP hosts for the first time guest musicians – «dear friend», Swedish flutist and tenor sax player Mats Gustafsson (on two pieces), along with three short interludes with some sinister samples and recordings of the ad-hoc local string quintet Swamp Strings (with Leirtrø on double bass). Gustafsson fits perfectly on the psychedelic groove of «Bed Robber», but when he picks the tenor sax on «Swamp», he takes the trio into a cathartic, intense climax. The interludes with Swamp Strings are disorienting but with a strong cinematic tension. The three pieces of I LIKE TO SLEEP playing alone distill the trio’s inventive, engaging, and groove-based, power-jazz-to-the-people aesthetics—a splash of color in rather dark times, as the trio likes to call it.

Eyal Hareuveni 

Amund Storløkken Åse (amplified vibraphone, Mellotron, sampler, percussion), Nicolas Leirtrø (Stavem bass-VI, drilled guitar, percussion),  Øyvind Leite (drums, percussion), Mats Gustafsson (flute, tenor saxophone), Swamp Strings: Maja Langeteig (violin), Emilija Petrovska (violin), Live Smidt (cello), Sigrid Angelsen (cello), Nicolas Leirtrø (double bass)