Anthropomorfi: Songs of Human-Animal Encounters - 2024 (Jazzland)

"Anthropomorfi: Songs of Human-Animal Encounters"

Knut Reiersrud returns to Jazzland with "Anthropomorfi: Songs of Human-Animal Encounters", another unexpected collection of eight original songs with a unique theme: each song is written and performed to portray the personality of an animal that has come into contact with humanity, often with unfortunate consequences.

Despite the theme, it does not adhere to what one might expect from such a record. There is no moral didacticism or pontification, no preaching from a guitar-shaped pulpit. Instead, with the exception of one song - Fuglens Morgensang ("Bird's Morning Song") - Reiersrud has chosen to convey these portraits without words, allowing the music to do the talking. However, it is a sonically fierce album, comprising guitar-based R&B, jazz, rock and funk stylings performed as only Knut and his band can. The band, together since 2006, operates like a single organism, with the kind of unity that only years of collaboration and comradeship can achieve. The album was recorded live on the legendary 16-track Otari tape machine in the large Salvation Army Hall in Oslo, an aesthetic decision that lends even greater urgency to the album, as well as analogue warmth and greater immediacy.