Lars Horntveth

Kaleidoscopic

(Smalltown Supersound)

Record Review by Alex Pudlin

From Miles Davis to Lindstrøm, certain musicians have treated the album like a canvas for extended ruminations on certain themes rather than a collection of digestible songs. But an album with only one track? That’s quite rare. Even records like Pharaoh Sanders’ Karma follows the 32+ minutes of “Creator Has a Master Plan” with a 5:00 minute album closer to the cleanse the palette. But don’t tell saxophonist/clarinetist/keyboardist Lars Horntveth, whose latest release Kaleidoscopic is a single 36-minute track. Despite the daunting length, as long as you don’t pop this baby on to accompany your morning run, the dividends are plentiful.

Although Horntveth’s day job is as a member of Norwegian Avant-Jazz band Jaga Jazzist, here Horntveth relies on classical, ambient and cinematic scoring motifs to weave a tapestry, equally ambitious and beautiful in scope. With help from drummer Gard Nilssen and members of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Kaleidoscopic spends the first third easing into focus, alternating between hypnotic Philip Glass-likeloops and John Williams strings. We begin with strings and electric piano kissing off each other in gentle discordance, before the strings soar as Horntveth’s keyboards twiddle in the background. And then a bass clarinet (or maybe it’s an oboe…forgive my woodwind deficient ears please) descends to invigorate the calm mood.

Kaleidoscopic’s juxtaposition between ambient passages and more readily accessible string sweeps illuminates the overall effectiveness and limitations of each technique. On one hand, while Horntveth often layers the strings to increase the piece’s tension, the result at times is too cinematic. Conversely, the repetitious, nearly hypnotic elements provide a backdrop over which Horntveth stretches out the possibility of what modern classical music can be. For instance, a slide guitar at around the 10:30 minute point is completely unlike any other sound used up until this point and as such tantalizes the ear canals. Other especially provocative moments include a Film Noir vibe that balances the idyllic mood at the 26 minute mark and a thrilling duet between electric guitar and oboe (ahem, bass clarinet?) at the 30 minute mark.

Occasionally, Kaleidoscopic meanders, such as the New Agey sax/acoustic guitar interlude at 29:00, but overall the piece rarely drags and continuously finds new ways to elaborate on earlier established themes, while always pushing forward. But all good decisions aside, one must wonder why Horntveth decides to end the piece with a three-minute coda that wanders about before simply vanishing. He could have just as easily made this a separate track (the aforementioned palette cleanser if you will). That said, Kaleidoscopic is an important work full of musical risks that mostly pay off. Highly recommended, especially if you happen to own the achingly beautiful Flower for the PS3. You’ll wonder why Kaleidoscopic wasn’t the soundtrack all along.