Live at Love Wheel Records documents a 31-minute, powerful free improvised session of the Norwegian double bass hero Ingebrigt Håker Flaten with his close associates from his time living in Austin, Texas – alto sax player Joshua Thomson and drummer and electronics player Lisa Cameron, known for her long-time collaborations with innovative improvisers like Damon Smith, Sandy Ewen, and Ernesto Diaz-Infante. This trio recorded before the album Place Is The Space (Personal Archives, 2022).
The album was recorded at the local Love Wheel Records shop during the Summer Solstice in June 2024. It highlights the trio’s deep yet relaxed affinity and the organic, soulful flow of the music. This is the debut album by the newly-founded label Love Wheel Records. Violinist Alex Cunningham, a close associate of Cameron and Damon Smith, did the cover artwork. The album is released as a limited edition vinyl with a download option.
The THC Trio features Jonathan Horne, another Austin-based associate of Håker Flaten and a self-taught guitarist-bassist, who also played in Place Is The Space, and continued to work with Håker Flaten after he relocated to Norway in The Young Mothers and Håker Flaten (Exit) Knarr, with Thomson and Cameron. The self-titled debut album of THC Trio was recorded at King Electric Studio in Austin in February 2023.
The six pieces blend free jazz and free improvisation, suggesting the slow-cooking, ritualistic aesthetic of this working trio by balancing Thomson’s relaxed, soulful alto sax, Horne’s atmospheric guitar and bass lines, and Cameron’s hypnotic pulses. The 12-minute «Hollandaise for Strings» allows Horne’s effects-laden guitar to stretch the trio’s sonic palette into more extreme and intense territories before it settles on another infectious, soulful pulse. His guitar work then leads «Tinto Clandestino» into unrestrained, powerful eruptions. The last piece, the 13-minute «A Barbaric Yawp» best captures the THC Trio aesthetics.
Eyal Hareuveni
Joshua Thomson (alto saxophone), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), Jonathan Horne (Mosrite guitar, Fender Bass VI), Lisa Cameron (drums, percussion, and electronics)
