Jan Bang

Punkt

Stup, Kristiansand, Norway

Punkt co-creator Jan Bang was particularly active this year, involved with two notable sets that revolved around recently released albums.

Originally a commission from the 2017 Hull City Of Culture, spanning the Humber Bridge, The Height Of The Reeds featured Bang, trumpeter Arve Henriksen and guitarist Eivind Aarset, along with a string-heavy small ensemble.

Henriksen’s delicate vocals made a faint awakening before the storm ahead,
as Bang found low-submersible tones, from straining cargo ship bowels, Humber imagery scudding across the back-screen. They achieved a sustained, morose lyricism that was turned into a more single-dimensioned mood during Helge Sten’s live remix.

Bang was at his best in partnership with Aarset, reflecting their album, Snow Catches On Her Eyelashes. This was one of the festival’s key sets, best described as ‘active ambient’. Made from cyclic coo-ing, 1950s cosmic whorls, after Fripp & Eno, and catching the perfect gloaming-time, again. The view outside these top floor windows held an uncanny power, in this new setting. There was a later graduation to metallic fracturing, perfectly set in a foundation tableau of silence, as Aarset played phrases imbued with a more apparent guitar origin.

Martin Longley, Jazzwise (UK)

(Photo: Alf Solbakken)