LALLE LARSSON'S WEAVEWORLD - WEAVEWORLD

With a band consisting of two guitar players, the more jazz-orientated Richard Hallebeek and the more heavy sounding Stefan Rosquist, the unsurpassed bass player Jonas Reingold,the excellent drummer Mickael Wahlgren and a small textless vocal contribution in the second song by Richard Szary, Sweden's top keyboard player Lalle Larrson surprises us with a superb instrumental album that takes us through heavy jazz-rock, solid symphonic soundscapes, subtle piano jazz and a healthy dose of progrock. All pieces show an almost unprecedented compositional mastership. Right in the opening track "Marionette" all the above mentioned stylistic characteristics can be fully enjoyed. It's great to experience the extreme contrast between Lalle's heavy and muscular electronic keyboard playing and the gentleness of his mostly jazzy inspired acoustic piano playing. Another aspect that catches the ear right from the start is the brilliant guitar playing by my compatriot Richard Hallebeek. His solo's are very beautiful and his sound is impeccable. I didn't know him, but judging by his playing, he may well have been a pupil from Wim Overgaauw, one of Holland's major jazz guitar players. A more mysterious atmosphere is created in "Dance Of The Dead", a piece that captures the listener right from the start. My personal favourite is the brilliant "Newborn Awakening" which lets us enjoy a fretless playing Jonas Reingold in optima forma and which should provide sufficient proof that Stefan Rosquist is a more than remarkable guitar player as well. Every theme in "Newborn Awakening" is perfectly chosen and brilliantly executed. If you play it ten times in a row, you keep discovering new beautiful spots you didn't remark before. At first sight Remo Gaziotto's "Adagio", based on a scrap of figured bass and a fragment of a violin part, attributed to Tomasso Albinoni, seems a bit kitschy, because so many musicians already used it for commercial purposes. However Lalle's brilliant and subtle piano playing, only assisted by Richard Hallebeek on acoustic guitar and Jonas Reingold on his fretless bass, makes amply up for this defect and I have to admit that he succeeded in rendering a convincing adaptation of this too often played piece. Masterpiece of the album is the almost a quarter of an hour lasting title piece "Weaveworld" in which you can fully enjoy the complete musical language of Lalle Larrson. Weather he plays the organ, mistreats his synthesizer or caresses the keys of his acoustic piano, there is never a doubt that you're listening to a true keyboard wizard. His band moves perfectly through all beautiful themes that are displayed in this fantastic piece. It's incredible that they are only so little known. With Lalle Larrson we have a keyboard player that combines the aggressiveness of a Keith Emerson to the inventiveness of a Chick Corea and the subtleness of a Duke Ellington or a Claude Bolling, but above all we have to do with an original and true keyboard genius. Are there no disadvantages on this album? Yes, the execution of the cd-booklet is a bit on the lean side, but once you entered the disc in your player, that is soon forgotten. I think that "Weaveworld" should belong in the cd collection of everyone who considers himself a true lover of progressive keyboard orientated music. Lalle Larrson is still an underestimated talent who deserves to be discovered. The only fair judgement, especially when compared with the competition is a five star one !

Erik de Beer.