Jazz
Jaeger Community Music · 12 June 2026
Gorm Askjær is a guitarist, composer and teacher based in Aarhus, and “Microverse I” brings him back to the studio six years after “Blodmånen og dig”, his trio’s debut (May 2020, on the same label). He keeps the core of Jens Mikkel Madsen on bass and Thomas Eiler on drums, and adds clarinettist and saxophonist Francesco Bigoni and cellist Malthe Volfing Højager. Twelve pieces, thirty-nine minutes.
The short form rules here. Five of the twelve tracks do not reach two and a half minutes and only “Fatamorgana” and “Where Do Lost Memories Go” go past five, so the record moves in brief blocks, each with its own character. The improvisations (“Under The Microscope”, “It Almost Works”, “It’s All Getting Fuzzy”) alternate with written chamber pieces without either side taking over, and the cello acts as the floor: it holds up whatever opens out and gives body to the freer parts.
Askjær comes out of Bill Frisell’s vocabulary and of jazz Americana, and here he takes it towards European ground. The opener rises out of silence on a unison theme and a rubato pulse; the closer, “You Can Never Hold Back Spring”, returns to it in a pastoral tone. In between there are atonal textures and drones that ask to be heard in sequence rather than track by track, and that is also where the record’s limit lies: with twelve miniatures and no piece that carries real weight, the whole is remembered as an atmosphere and not as a repertoire.
It was recorded at Finland Studio in Aarhus and the label’s catalogue number is JCM081. The title carries a number and no second part has been announced so far.
Rating: 7.8/10
Text by Aina Torrents