Jazz
Losen Records · 21 August 2026
“Phase I.a”, five fifteen, is literally the first thing these three ever recorded together in a studio, and it’s the track that opens the album. What drives it is a groove from Raymond Storaunet Lavik built on bells he works with his left foot while his hands handle the kit: that ring becomes the record’s signature and comes back later. The trio formed in August 2024 and cut “Phase I” in June 2025 at Studio Martin in Røros; it came out on 21 August on Losen.
The bells return on “Phase I.c”, three nine, the shortest of the eight, and there the motif sits inside a far denser, polyrhythmic weave than the one it opened in. In between comes “Phase I.b”, five thirty-two, which heads off into darker territory and lets the music breathe. The three pieces carrying the album’s name are the ones that show the house method: a minimal rhythmic idea thickened until it no longer resembles what it was.
Alexander Hoholm is on double bass and Martin Sandvik Gjerde on piano, and both work texture rather than solos; there’s no statement of a theme here and no taking of turns. The credits split the eight tracks across two sides of twenty-two fifty-eight and eighteen zero six, and the two long pieces (“Hold”, six thirty-seven, and “Drift”, six sixteen) sit one on each.
The record eats off the same plate throughout. Everything is improvised out of a cell, and the titles confirm it: “Hold”, “Remain”, “Fade”, “Still” and “Drift”, five of the eight, are single words describing a state of stillness. Four tracks sit between five ten and five thirty-two, and across forty-one minutes the album ends up with one single speed of thought: what’s a discovery on “Phase I.a” is an established method by “Still” and “Fade”. The trio was ten months old when it walked into Studio Martin.
Rating: 7.0/10
Text by Aina Torrents