After issuing six trio albums between 2011 and 2019 -- all of which rammed at the gates separating jazz, heavy metal, and avant-prog -- Norwegian guitarist Hedvig Mollestad was presented with an opportunity to grow. Norway's Vossajazz Festival commissioned a new work and performance for the 2019 event. She responded by hiring an entirely new sextet comprised of Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, drummer Torstein Lofthus, percussionist Ole Mofjell, and electric keyboardists Marte Eberson and Jon Balke. The finished result is Ekhidna. The album has been edited, re-arranged, and re-recorded in the studio, with Erlend Slettevoll replacing Balke. The title refers to the Greek half-woman, half-snake goddess considered the mother of monsters.
At just over 40 minutes, this is a streamlined collection of six compositions. The brief opener "No Friends But the Mountains" is under two minutes and consists of Santos offering a moody, Spanish-tinged theme; Mollestad fingerpicks the changes and keys color the backdrop. The guitarist's chugging, Motorhead-esque riffing introduces "A Stone's Throw." Santos Silva joins Mollestad on the frontline, twinning her angular guitar arpeggios then vamping solo in a minor-key mode. Lofthus and Slettevoll surround them with a furious yet carefully arranged polyrhythmic syncopation. The keyboard players assert themselves in the bridge as the band drops into a pastoral terrain that recalls Pink Floyd's "Breathe," just before Lofthus' snare reroutes the crew. At over ten minutes, "Antilone" begins at full bore; seemingly an unruly prog-cum-jazz riff shared by the guitarist, trumpeter, and keyboardists, as Lofthus improvises and Slettevoll keeps a clattering, unruly beat. The importance of Santos Silva cannot be overstated. Her playing is canny and focused without any extra notes. She adds texture and uncommon modal lyricism (she has studied Miles Davis' late second quintet and early electric recordings extensively). She also offers a forceful dynamic that balances space and color; the dialogic interplay between her and Mollestad is seamless. On this jam the interaction between drummers (kit and congas) is locked down amid the accompanying distorted Fender Rhodes vamps, which crackle in the margins to expand the frontline's tonal reach. While the title track commences as a slow, psych guitar blues, the band gradually turn it inside-out in pursuit of an elegiac melody. Mollestad and Lofthus re-center those electric blues as Santos Silva melds prog and serpentine jazz-funk. Closer "One Leaf Left" spends most of its seven minutes as an atmospheric ballad with trumpet and guitar playing different polytonal lyrics and harmonic facets amid painterly Rhodes pianos and hypnotic, interlocking percussion. With a single stinging note, Mollestad jars the tune out of its reverie and into a noisy metallic blues, while Santos Silva drops out and the rest of the band answer with sharp angles, grinding changes, and thudding tom-toms. Hedvig Mollestad has already changed the jazz-rock aesthetic. Ekhidna reveals an expansive use of harmonic and dissonant improv, electronically altered tonalities, and riveting polyrhythms as guideposts toward a new musical moment.