HEDVIG MOLLESTAD - Ekhidna

With my mouth still permanently open due to the awesomeness of the latest Motorpsycho release, what better to review next than an album from another musician, who not only also hails from Norway and shares a lot of influences with the Trondheim boys, but also truly plays in an equal - and in some aspect probably even superior - artistic league?

HEDVIG MOLLESTAD - Ekhidna (white vinyl LP) (2020)

If you've ever had the pleasure of experiencing the Hedvig Mollestad Trio live, you already know that I I'm not exagerrating the immense talent of its eponymous fusion guitar heroine.
The virtuosity and joyful ease in which the trio flows between creamy and hendrixian power rock, heavy prog, funk, jazz, psych and whatnot is an absolutely irresistable rush.

This new album however is explicitly not a work with her regular band, but a commissioned cooperation with five other musicians for the Vossajazz Festival 2019.

On "Ekhidna" Mollestad definitely doesn't try to hide the trademarks established with her trio, so especially the faster paced rocking stuff with riffs and licks not too far from the aforementioned Motorpsycho or the Danish krautmeisters Causa Sui could very well be performed by her trio.
But apart from the fact that this record's line-up has no accounted bass player, there's a whole lot of other stuff going on which even her phenomenal superhuman trio couldn't possibly pull off.

Backed up by a mostly extermely busy drummer plus percussionist rhythm section, we can hear two vintage keyboardists on electronic piano, Rhodes, Moog etc., Marte Eberson and Erlend Slettevoll, both strictly assigned to the right and left stereo channel, a production choice typically more common for saxophone duos. (Check out every John Coltrane record, where he is sharing duty with other players like Pharoah Sanders!) 
It's however a relatively subtle thing here.

Speaking of wind instruments, the most significant voice besides the guitar is Susana Santos  Silva's very expressive trumpet.

In general Mollestad, who could easily shred and conjure front and center any given time, leaves her collaborators and the unity of the band a lot of space to shine. "Ekhidna" clearly doesn't focus on her mastery of the six strings (which of course is present in a mostly rather casual way), but on her abilities as a composer and band leader.

And as such it is pretty obvious that what she has written with these six tracks is above everything else a love letter to the jazz fusion masters of the Seventies:

Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Santana, Miles Davis are all dancing within the DNA of this record.

So of course no wheel is being re-invented here. This has all been done before.

But Hedvig Mollestad does it with such an overwhelming class, authenticity and freshness that it just blows you away.

Could this even be improved? I don't feel a strong overarching story here, so maybe with a more connected concept behind it, there might have been room for possibilities? But then on the hand: Why should an album not just be a collection of some damn fine instrumental tunes?

 

"Ekhidna" comes on limited white vinyl which should not only find a loving home at fans of recent releases like most stuff from the El Paraiso roster (like Brian Ellis or - hey, Norwegians again! - Kanaan) or the spiritual and contemporary jazz of Kamasi Washington or Yazz Ahmed.

No, I promise you can also put this record next to any work of the great genre elders it is honouring and it will never make a bad figure. If "Ekhidna" is not a premium level fusion masterpiece, then such doesn't exist.