Label: Jazzland Recordings, 2021

Personnel - Eivind Aarset: guitar, electronics; Wetle Holte: drums, percussion, metallophone, metronome, drum programming, organ; Erland Dahlen: drums, percussion, vibraphone, drum programming; Audun Erlien: bass, Casio synth + guests Arve Henriksen: trumpet; Jan Bang: sampling; John Derek Bishop: field recordings and sound treatments.

Phantasmagoria or A Different Kind of Journey is a new experimental proposition by Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset, whose power of invention takes this record to more accessible yet no less stunning places. Aarset teams up with versatile drummers and percussionists Wetle Holte and Erland Dahlen as well as the bassist Audun Erlien, and counts on guest appearances by the atmospheric trumpeter Arve Henriksen, the sampling wizard Jan Bang and the electronic musician John Derek Bishop.

Aarset’s “Intoxication” makes us plunge into an ambient jazz universe painted with cinematic imagery and fetching timbral qualities. Sustained chord washes, guitar distortion, and impeccable drumming get the company of Erlien’s one-time Casio synth patch.

“Pearl Hunter” and “Soft Grey Ghosts”, two pieces that develop in a streamlined quintuple meter, also came to life by Aarset’s pen. While the former sets aside the sinister indie rock demeanor in detriment of an assumed composure that probes recondite routes at a later phase, the latter seems to have been born from gothic Americana, also suggesting an imaginary crossing between Bjork’s syncopated textures and Nick Cave’s lugubrious tones.

If “Outbound” has a dancing quality to it, thriving with prog-rock attitude, noise pollution and elements of ambient, then its twin, “Inbound”, raises the bar with an off-kilter instrumentation and sound design that show the fertile imagination of the musicians involved.

Over the course of the fairly accessible “Manta Ray”, it’s Henriksen’s trumpet that soars high over a warped texture whose inquisitive, breathing layers probe delicate and comfortable atmospheres. This track contrasts with the next, “Didn’t See This One Coming”, a wired quartet improvisation with shredded guitar, spectral samples engendered by Bang, and a sort of motorik beat.

Loosely based on “Waiting for a Boat” by Bel Canto’s singer Anneli Drecker, “Light on Shanzu River” concludes the album by lulling us into a pleasant dream-state.

This hallucinatory fusion of experimental rock, avant-garde, ambient and noise is a thoroughly engrossing trip to Aarset’s mystified musical cosmos.