Label: Rare Noise Records, 2026
Personnel - Jo Berger Myhre: double bass, 8-string bass guitar, drum machine, additional synths; Morten Qvenild: hyper(sonal), grand piano, synthesizers; Kaveh Mahmudiyan: tombak, daf, bandır; Jo David Meyer Lysne: guitars, una corda piano, electromagnets; Synnøve Sætre Hveem: vocals.
Norwegian bassist and composer Jo Berger Myhre approaches patterns, drones, and general ideas with curiosity on Penta, his third release for Rare Noise Records. The album, where cultures and disciplines intersect with remarkable fluidity, reunites the core quartet from Live Maneuvers (2023). Myhre specifically composed this music with keyboardist Morten Qvenild, percussionist Kaveh Mahmudiyan, and guitarist Jo David Meyer Lysne in mind, and their contributions become essential to the album’s immersive arc. Guest vocalist Synnøve Sætre Hveem appears on two tracks, adding further textural depth.
“Theme and Variations” opens by weaving emotional tapestries through piano, understated percussion, and bass, all suspended against a grainy white-noise backdrop. The piece feels like a meeting point between Olivier Messiaen and Philip Glass. “Abyss in B-flat Minor”, a tribute to Norwegian shoegaze band Serena Maneesh, unfolds like a meditation steeped in longing, while “Solo Improvisation”, with Myhre stepping fully into the foreground, provides one of the album’s finest moments—deeply grounded, introspective, and rich in tonal nuance.
Myhre, who alternates between acoustic bass—often played arco—and a vintage Hagström eight-string bass guitar, uses chordal textures and dexterous fingerpicking to broaden the music’s sonic possibilities. “Augmentation in G-flat” moves through a 5/8 pulse, combining radiant guitar currents, counterintuitive piano splashes, and astral synth effects while Hveem’s ethereal vocals occasionally merge with the keyboard’s lower register. Its fusion of jazz, ambient textures, and world-music inflections gradually dissolves into a floating atmosphere.
“Ancohemitonic Turn of Events” feels simultaneously ritualistic and spontaneous, incorporating syncopated drum machines, resonant bowed bass, and acidic synth bursts into a globally inflected electronic soundscape enriched by rhythmic noodling and whistled melodies. The album closes with “Ending on a Low Note”, whose title aptly reflects its poignant and mournful character. Small percussive eruptions and subtly Eastern melodic contours shape a lament of quiet emotional power.
Myhre’s music pulses with a vital, searching energy, exploring the fragile spaces between breath and sound. His patterned imprints, often reinforced by adapt post-production, casts an occasional spell.
Favorite Tracks:
02 - Augmentation in G flat ► 03 - Abyss in B-flat minor ► 05 - Solo Improvisation