THE SHADOW - VOL 1

THE TRONOSONIC EXPERIENCE were a four piece from Norway who played a powerful avant/jazz style of music with some incredible guitar, and on their 2017 debut they had Ivar from the Hedvig Mollestad Trio on drums. The bass player and leader of the band Per Harald Ottensen sadly passed away from a serious illness in February of 2022. This album "The Shadow Vol 1" and it's companion "The Shadow Vol 2" were taken from the live recordings the band did at Ocean Sound Recordings over four days just before Christmas in 2019. With Per getting seriously ill they held off releasing these until March of 2022 a month after his passing.

The two cds put together form one big piece of art. And thankyou Apollon Records for sending me these recordings. So we get this insane sax player and an equally off his rocker guitarist with those soundscapes and expressions. The guy makes a lot of noise. A new drummer who is very good and of course our leader Per on bass, he also adds electronics(as does the guitarist) and lap steel. And he's the composer of all but a couple of minutes.

The opener "Sheik Pt. I" is shown on the back cover as being 5:19 but it should be 9:19 making this a 34 1/2 minute recording. What keeps this record from being great in my opinion is the 8 1/2 minute "Totak" where we get a relaxing piece of music that trips along for too long. I mean it's a nice break perhaps from the chaos but we also get two short pieces that could have done that but they made the shortest of those the closer.

By the way "Sheik Pt. 1" is the opener and it's an awesome example along with the 7 1/2 minute "Golden Comet" at how powerful and relentless this band could be. The sax and guitar are outrageous at times plus the electronics and soundscapes give us some layers. KROKOFANT came to mind on "Golden Comet" and I have to mention "The Last Stand" that rounds out my top three as another blistering affair.

I feel they put the best stuff on "Vol 2" and I'm really looking forward to talking about it in a couple of weeks or so. This one is a very solid 4 stars just hold on to your hat.