Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin – Ghosted III (LP)

In actuality, the sound of this trio has been all about new developments since they first started playing together. That’s something to be simply expected when dropping the tonearm on any of their records, which is a very nice thing. There’s also something to be said for constancy, especially when it produces such stimulating variations of tone and mood within the trio format. So, all good—since there wasn’t anything broke, there was no need to fix it. Instead, just do it again. With that credo, Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin returned to Stockholm’s Studio Rymden to continue the incredible standard of capture that distinguished both Ghosted and Ghosted II.

Although they took more studio time than ever before (three whole days!), Ghosted III’s new development is an increased immediacy in their performances, something a little looser and wilder than than their first two albums—and something, no doubt, that’s been developed by their encounters during the several dozen-plus gigs played since their debut. Thus, their ability to lock in and focus, hanging on to the smallest of details, is here enhanced by an expansive lightness of being. Such potentially polar skill sets could well make for uneven chemistry—but in the hands of these three, a sparkling variety of new jams occurs. They seem to be available to try anything these days, at times playing with the exuberance of prog-rockers or new-wave popsters, alongside the eternal energies of their established styles: ambient neo-jazz, post-kraut, minimal funk. In the end, their shared instinct shapes the varied emissions into structure reaching ever further into the ether—giving Ghosted III a singular quality belonging only to the trio that is Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin.

Tracklist:

1. Yek
2. Do
3. Seh
4. Chahar
5. Panj
6. Shesh