MoE & Ikuro Takahashi featuring Signe Emmeluth - Live at Børsen Kulturhus

 

By William Rossi

MoE, the vocals, guitar and bass duo of Guro Moe and Håvard Skaset, is one of the most interesting rock acts around today, merging aggression and a punk attitude and with a love for improvised and experimental music. On this release they're joined by frequent collaborator Ikuro Takahashi on drums and alto saxophonist powerhouse Signe Emmeluth. While collaboration and experimentation are to be expected with this band this record is notable for mainly two reasons: it was recorded live in concert (which came as a surprise to me because their chemistry is so great that I'd assumed a lot of their records were recorded live) and it's the first MoE album in which frontwoman and backbone of the band Guro Moe trades her trusty electric bass for a double bass.

While each of the six untitled tracks has its own identity, the album is a full gig recording with the dynamics of a concert as a consequence. After a short minute of mood setting and acclimatization the four musicians get straight to business with pummeling, fluid drumming, furious guitar bashing and driving bass setting the stage for Emmeluth to shine on her sax. This no holds barred first track immediately shows just how tight this band is and will be throughout the album, the especially fantastic interplay between the sax and the guitar being a highlight. The second track brings the energy down a bit and rests on Moe's signature bass playing, simultaneously gluing the band together and laying down a delightfully off-kilter groove. Takahashi and Skaset take a step back, the former focusing mainly on the cymbals and the latter turning his guitar into something that resembles a synth pad, leaving the bass and sax to their polyrithmic dance. 

 

Track four, the midpoint of the concert, introduces hints of psychedelia, with its effects-heavy guitar and a saxophone that at times sounds like a half-remembered dream, but the music and the mood are in constant evolution and the underwater feeling is soon spirited away by a massive bowed bass riff and a desperate shriek.

In the latter half of the album the music takes on a mysterious quality and something else takes center stage: Moe's fantastic vocal performance. While the vocals and lyrics are present throughout the record (MoE is a rock band at their core at the end of the day) it feels like at a certain point all four musicians collectively decide to give priority to the vocal performance for a while. And what a performance it is! Full of passion, melody and angst, ranging from hissing whispers to operatic highs, often in conversation and sync with Emmeluth's altissimo notes, it's endlessly engaging and captivating Takahashi and Skaset then take on a more active role, guiding the band towards a final crescendo of distortion, blister-inducing bass playing and squealing sax overtones. For the second time on the record the band proves to be just as capable at bringing the energy down as building it up, something arguably harder to do convincingly, and they close the concert out with a slithering bowed bassline enveloped by Moe's soaring vocals.

All four musicians are extremely talented and have a very assertive voice. The challenge for the band then becomes creating music that's balanced and doesn't particularily revolve around any one musician and I think they pass this challenge with flying colors. The players know exactly what and when to play, when to be active and when to play support in order to serve the music first and foremost. Emmeluth in particular is fantastic at exchanging ideas with the others, always picking the right notes to embellish a guitar chord or supporting a vocal melody,. There are no flashy solos or traditional jazz or even rock forms, just collective creation of a kind of music that revolves around attitude and emotion. It's an elating, moving and lively album, beautifully recorded and presented. I hope to hear this lineup together again soon.

 

Released on digitally and on CD by Conrad Sound.