«TUNGEMÅL III» is the last volume in a trilogy of albums of Danish-Argentinian guitarist-composer-improviser-educator Mark Solborg, all suggesting his sonic vision for the electrified guitar as a voice and a musical idiom in contemporary chamber musical contexts. This comprehensive «TUNGEMÅL» (tongue or language in Danish) study offers profound insights and discoveries about the tongue of the modern guitar as an elaborate instrument for artistic creativity, its almost infinite idioms, in changing sonic environments it inhabits, and in solo format and within different instrumental contexts.
The previous volumes offered written and free-improvised solos of Solborg and duos and trios with pianist Simon Toldam, reeds player Lars Greve and sax player Francesco Bigoni, recorded in the studio and in site-specific spaces, and were accompanied with books of written reflections, notes to the scores, photos, spatial diagrams and graphic illustrations. This third volume deepens the «TUNGEMÅL» concept in a live free-improvised concert. Solborg plays with an ad-hoc quartet, featuring Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, Greve and legendary German drummer Paul Lovens, recorded live at KoncertKirken, Copenhagen, during the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in July 2019.
«TUNGEMÅL III» is a masterful set by like-minded, imaginative sonic alchemists. Solborg, Santos Silva, Greve and Lovens are all masters of the art of the moments, and all have developed their own personal array of extended techniques and palette of sounds. But the essence of this egalitarian quartet not about exploring sound. It is about deep listening, which leads in its turn to the natural flow of music. The dynamics are intimate, conversational and poetic, letting the music sing and blossom in its own accord and shape organically. The music is full of surprising detours. It visits a twisted whirling dervishes dance and climaxes with an emotional and lyrical coda on the first piece; it sketches a gentle and ethereal West-African blues that shifts into a tense and abstract, sound-oriented improvisation on the second piece; and it concludes with a touching, lyrical melody, articulated by Solborg and enriched cleverly by Lovens, Santos Silva and Greve’s poetic ornamentations.
«TUNGEMÅL III» is a remarkable conclusion for Soborg’s extensive study. It is released on a limited edition 180g LP with handprinted cover artwork by Solborg, and digitally.
Eyal Hareuveni
Mark Solborg (g), Susana Santos Silva (tp), Lars Greve (cl, s), Paul Lovens (dr, cymbals, gongs)
