Joel and the Neverending Sextet - Pouring Textures (LP)

The Neverending Sextet is led by the Swedish bassist, cellist, and composer Joel Ring. The music reflects the bandleader’s characteristics and sources of inspiration. Here you’ll find melodic jazz tunes, longing melodies, and rich soundscapes.

Ring has excelled in collaboration with, among others, Jo David Meier Lysne in the duo Wendra Hill, Ole Morten Vågan in the trio Pumkin and with the Andreas Røysum Ensemble, who should be well known to Motvind Records’ listeners. Now he’s ready with his own band!

Ring: As a bandleader and composer, I find great inspiration in textures and patterns. Textures and patterns that exist in our everyday lives and that we interact with daily, both physically and visually. It can be statically cold but also natural and organic textures that possess many inspiring details.

And the inspiration has indeed manifested itself in sweet-sounding music. The opening track is, to use a timeless jazz expression, hip. The next one, burning. The third track keeps the intensity up and brings the listener into the fine world of free jazz. The fourth track opens with a drum spectacle that turns into a hit of a song that immediately awakens the desire to dance. The album ends with a mournful melody and a low-key, painting soundscape.

With him, Ring has a beautiful group of lively musicians. Here at the record company, there is a consensus that Anton Jonsson is among Scandinavia's most life-giving drummers. But not to belittle Tomas Sandström, who is really a joy to listen to both on this album, and in the slightly absurd band Urban:Dentist. That group also features the pianist Milton Öhrström who shows here that he is an excellent improviser. Karl Hjalmar "Kalle" Nyberg has taken Norway by storm with his fantastic saxophone and clarinet playing and it is a great pleasure to finally hear him on a Motvind Records record. We’ve previously heard Heida Mobeck on IS OKAY OKAY IS CERTIFIED by Spacemusic Ensemble and she is as we all know, rock solid.

Ring says this about his fellow musicians: My fellow musicians adds both a wide range of expressions, but above all, strong individual performances that develop the music in new directions. Their improvisational skills colour the music with an unpredictable factor that, together with the noted material, creates the overall expression of the ensemble.

Together, there is drive and youthful courage, virtuosity, and melodic flair. Joel Ring has done a great job in writing the music, putting together the ensemble and making the cover art. Pouring Textures is a good title that refers to the fact that both the tight, swinging grooves and the loose parts on this record that can be reminiscent of a flowing stream of euphony.e

Joel Ring - cello
Heida Mobeck - tuba
Anton Jonsson - drums
Tomas Sandström - drums
Milton Öhrström - piano
Karl Hjalmar Nyberg - tenor saxophone and clarinet

Recorded at Flerbruket, 15th and 16th of February 2020 by Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard 
Mixed by Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Cover art by Joel Ring 
Graphic design by Egil Kalman