Angles Octet (Sweden)

World premiere
1 July, CD Linhart Hall

At 22.30 the Linhart Hall of Cankarjev dom hosted the Angles, and astounding line-up that the previous day enchanted the citizens of Ljubljana with a street concert.

The atmosphere in the auditorium was astonishing. With its vigorous, chaotic simultaneous soloing, the rich brass section, joined by trumpeter of Croatian descent, Goran Kajfes, was transported into ecstatic rapture, heightened by the balanced forceful drumming by Kjell Nordeson and the repetitive figures performed by bass Johan Berthling and merely 20-year-old Alexander Sethson on piano.

The organic net of associations among others featured influences of free jazz, hard bop, Balkan brass music and noise. The originator of the band, sax player Martin Küchen, incited his collective with cries, humming and idiosyncratic gestures. The politically engaged music, reflective and intensely rhythmic at the same time, delighted the Ljubljana Jazz Festival audience.

                                                                              Andraž Jež