Jazz
Sail Cabin Records · 25 September 2026
In 2018 Stockholm’s Fasching asked Elin Forkelid to play John Coltrane’s music and she turned it down. Less than two years later, the group she ended up putting together released its first record on her own label, Sail Cabin. “Plays For Trane, Vol. 2” came out on 25 September and follows on from that one.
The repertoire on this second instalment concentrates on the saxophonist’s final years. Five pieces in forty-two minutes, starting with a block of fifteen minutes and forty-eight seconds, “Dearly Beloved / Sun Star / Venus”, which begins with a choir of squalling soprano saxophones for close to five minutes before any shape emerges from it. It is the hardest stretch of the record and it is placed first.
The band has no piano, which spreads the harmonic work between Mattias Ståhl’s vibraphone and David Stackenäs’s electric guitar, with Vilhelm Bromander on double bass and Jon Fält on drums. The readings do not go for the copy: “Expression” heads straight for the melody over a free pulse, “Naima” comes out in suspended textures and on “Peace On Earth” Stackenäs brings in East African figures that were not there before. “Reverend King” closes it, with Forkelid’s soprano above a minimalist backdrop. It was recorded at the Atlantis Metronome studios in Stockholm on 9 and 10 June 2025, and the Sail Cabin catalogue numbers are SCRCD006 on CD and SCRLP006 on vinyl.
Rating: 8.0/10
Text by Aina Torrents