Latest releases reviewed

IN THE COUNTRY
This Was The Pace of My Heartbeat
Rune Grammofon
***

It is questionable if there are enough hours in the day for Norwegian musician Morten Qvenild to keep track of all his musical hats. Besides aiding and abetting Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, The National Bank, Jaga Jazzist, The Shining and Solveig Slettahjell, Qvenild's latest outing is fronting a piano trio who specialise in sparse, hushed sounds. Throughout this sturdy, likeable debut album, the pace is languid and unhurried, all the better for Qvenild's trio to investigate what can be achieved by widening and deepening the space between the notes. Despite the accent on minimalism throughout, there is a richness and a shine to how the trio operate, demonstrated most clearly in the streamlining of Ryan Adams's In my Time of Need into a gentle jazz-kissed anthem for the small hours that could have been touched by the hands of Bill Evans. www.inthecountry.no

ALUCIDNATION
Induction
Big Chill
***

There is still a place out there where dreamy vocals and slow-motion horizontal beats produce a wave of nodding, blissed-out heads, and Alucidnation's Bruce Bickerton has obviously driven a camper van to that very place quite a few times. While reminiscent in part of those chillout albums from a couple of years ago, which had punters in raptures about spectacular sunsets and Balearic cafe terraces, Bickerton is too much of a canny operator to rely solely on cliches to fine-tune the moods he wishes to set. Instead, he layers each track with texture and reverb, ensuring the overall melancholic, hazy drift is never too far away. Tracks such as the finely poised I'm Bad and the balmy Quick Sketch burst with atmosphere, due largely to how Bickerton tunes the prevailing ambience. An album of subtle, unassuming drama. www.bigchill.net