Jazz/Review Knut Kvifte Nesheim, OJKOS - Graosido

Knut Kvifte Nesheim is a drummer and composer based in Oslo, Norway. With a background in Norwegian folk music and jazz and with a passion for improvised music, Nesheim is making a distinctive mixture of experimental drum music and melodic and playful interplay. He is active both as a performer and composer with OJKOS, Julius, and Espera and has also released two critically acclaimed albums in his own name.

The most recent album by drummer and composer Knut Kvifte Nesheim, who collaborated with the Norwegian jazz orchestra OJKOS, is titled “Graosido.” It is a cinematic and expansive meditation on perspective, memory, and environment. The music reflects its visual muse, which is the hourglass-shaped rock of the Graosido mountain range. It is simultaneously whimsical and majestic, precarious and unyielding. The auditory world of the record is as dynamic and erratic as the changing weather and light above the mountain that served as its inspiration.

Nesheim has observed the mountain's reflection in the water appear closer than it actually is, a phenomena that permeates the compositions, from his family's old farmstead beside Lake Løna. Airy melodies portray expansive landscapes, while abrupt rhythmic flurries and percussive interjections like avalanches, shifting clouds, or wind gusts. These compositions on “Graosido” capture that dichotomy of intimacy and distance. With the full force of an ensemble that embraces both symphonic richness and modern Nordic jazz sensibilities, OJKOS realizes Nesheim's goal.

The record does a fantastic job at capturing the soundscape. The tracks alternate between powerful, rhythmically intricate sections and quiet, almost ambient passages, evoking the tension of a stone that appears to be about to tumble but never does. Every piece has the quality of a patient, respectful, and living dialogue with nature.

More than just an album, “Graosido” is a living depiction of a place and the feelings it evokes, a musical geography. Nesheim has produced an album that is both grounded and otherworldly by fusing introspection with OJKOS's wide-ranging color scheme.