Norway’s classy young double bassist and vocalist Ellen Andrea Wang has a burgeoning singer-songwriting life, as well as a role as leader of the ambient-jazz quartet Pixel and working on a side project with drums star Manu Katché. Jazz listeners might balk at seven vocal tracks – but Wang’s captivating voice (she has been compared to singers as different as Rickie Lee Jones and Swedish pop-folk sisters First Aid Kit; Kate Bush or Joanna Newsom could also join the list) has a big star’s promise, and Andreas Ulvo’s jazzily inventive acoustic piano and Erland Dahlen’s seismic drumming endlessly repaint the backdrop. Wang mixes terseness and a spooky ethereality on the immigration-interview satire Peace Prize, hops registers above the heavy groove of Bad Blood, wittily tone-bends her way through Electric (“I’ve got an electric conscience / I’ve got an electric mind / I’ve got an electric boyfriend”). But her majestic Charlie Haden-like bass intro to chorister-vocal atmospherics on Accord De Paris is a reminder of the talented Wang’s jazz-bass power. She is a real find.
Contributor
John Fordham
John Fordham is the Guardian's main jazz critic. He has written several books on the subject, reported on it for publications including Time Out, Sounds, Wire and Word, and contributed to documentaries for radio and TV. He is a former editor of Time Out, City Limits and Jazz UK, and regularly contributes to BBC Radio 3's Jazz on 3
John Fordham
The GuardianTramp
