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Album
Cracks
Bendik Giske →21,352 listeners102,143 plays
instrumentalambientexperimentalmodern classicalelectronic
about this album
When Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske surfaced on the scene three years ago, he instantly fit in with Oslo’s Smalltown Supersound label. The label’s adventurous, polyglot roster, home to mavericks such as Supersilent and Deathprod, has a long history blurring the parameters of “ambient” and “jazz.” Giske’s 2019 debut album, Surrender, summoned an interiorized soundworld in which the sax, rather than a conveyor of melody, becomes a generator of fractalized sonic microbes that coalesce into mesmerizing shapes. That release established him as one of the label’s most fascinating artists. Giske’s approach has more in common with the otherworldly fever-dreamscapes of the late trumpeter Jon Hassell and his young sax acolyte Sam Gendel than with any jazz traditionalists. Assisted by André Bratten’s electronic treatments, what issues out of Giske’s horn are miniaturist Joan Miró paintings made out of Nordic breath, aswirl with dazzling ripples and angular abstractions. Cracks delves deeper still into this bizarre approach, which is highly disciplined while maintaining a baseline calmness. The drama in Giske’s tracks is informed by his keen ear for when to recede and when to surge. It’s the familiar quiet-loud-quiet ethos, but micromanaged on a second-by-second basis. Similarities exist with the music of circular-breathing master saxophonist Colin Stetson, as loads of reply guys under Giske’s YouTube clips have observed, but the Norwegian musician’s work lacks the bravado and the “
