Marius Neset with London Sinfonietta - Snowmelt (2016)

The sensational young Norwegian saxophonist and composer Marius Neset hinted at broader canvases with his fine small-group album Pinball, and its sparing applications of strings and woodwind. This one sets the full London Sinfonietta chamber orchestra skipping, skidding and soaring through Neset’s intricate and fast-changing 240-page score, with his saxes and exciting quartet at the hot core of the action.

Splicing multiphonic solo-sax passages, sprightly folk-dances, avant-swing and brittle call-and-response exchanges with bassoons, french horns and pizzicato fiddles, it’s also steeped in the detailed technicalities of Stravinsky, Mahler or Alban Berg.

As the tenor sax wheels over string swoops and Anton Eger’s edgy percussion, or deep multiphonic booms are hustled by pizzicato passages into ecstatic jigs, it is gripping. But it feels like three albums’ worth of ideas packed into one, and memorable motifs are sometimes swept up in the melee before they’re bloomed.

Tracklist:

01. Prologue
02. Arches of Nature: Sirens
03. Arches of Nature: Acrobatics
04. Arches of Nature: Circles
05. Arches of Nature: Caves
06. Arches of Nature: Paradise
07. Arches of Nature: Rainbows
08. Arches of Nature: Pyramiden
09. The Storm Is Over
10. Introduction to Snowmelt
11. Snowmelt