Album: Møster! - Springs

Springs begins cooking with “Spaced Out Invaders - Part I Quirks,” its fourth track. A spindly, rotating guitar figure interweaves with clattering percussion and pulsating electric bass. Around three minutes in, a sax – which, until this point, has kept in the background – begins whipping up a maelstrom. Overall, the effect conjured is that of a space rock-inclined exotica, Martin Denny had he been an early Seventies freak.

Elsewhere, Springs turns corners into pure kosmiche-adjacent spaciness (“Spaced Out Invaders - Part II Vessels”), Canterbury scene jazz rock were it informed by a Gang Of Four-styled post-punk (the first half of “Torsional Pendulum”), spindly funk-bedded fusion (“Knuckles to the Ground”) and the unlikely marriage of motorik and an Albert Ayler-ish squall (album closer “Atmospheric Entry”). Springs is a jazz album, but much of what’s feeding into it comes from rock’s outer edges.

Møster! are named after their leader Kjetil Møster, whose main instrument is saxophone (which he is not limited to on Springs). This is the Norwegian quartet’s sixth album. The other members are Nikolai Hængsle (bassist in punk-edged fusion outfit Elephant9; who also plays keyboards here), Kenneth Kapstad (drummer in hard rock-inclined jazzers Spidergawd and former Motorpsycho member) and Hans Magnus Ryan (guitarist in prog-psych adventurers Motorpsycho). Møster! the band are a form of supergroup.

What’s heard on Springs feels like a distillation of lengthy explorations and improvisations. Not jams, but structured workouts which have become the basis of each of the album’s nine tracks. Heard overall, from beginning to end, the album flows but doesn't fully cohere: the rhythm-based tracks (“Spaced Out Invaders - Part I Quirks,” “Torsional Pendulum,” “Knuckles to the Ground,” “Atmospheric Entry”) have a greater impact than the free-form, more impressionistic cuts. Springs, then, appears to open a window on what would be blistering in a live setting – when restraint could be abandoned.

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