Can listen here.
Edition | 2018
Label | Clean Feed
Not writing does not mean I’m not listening anything new. Yes, I did, but any record had pulled me to write and the words decided not to flow. I decided to focus on this last "batch" of Clean Feed and there is no escape from the Hamar Trio. Hernâni plays there. He is one of the bass players whose work I like to follow, and it was exactly with this one that I decided to start. Klaus's record with the Ballrogg (Abaft the Beam - Clean Feed 2017) only whet my curiosity to realize what the Hamar Trio was going to show us in Yesterday is Here. And because the eyes also eat ... This cover is one of my favourite from the label. Reminds me a possible version of the book "Three Men on a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome. For those who did not read it, you should put this book in your books to read on the next holidays. It has a great humor and is one of those books that, unfortunately, are unnoticed in the bookstores. Coming back to the record ... What happens when Klaus Holm, Hernâni Faustino and Nuno Mourão come together? A really good record! Of course!
Long tracks, deep breaths and subtle notes. These are the perfect ingredients for what these three musicians propose to create. We slowly step into this record with Yellow Plum. Sounds like the first experience among the three. It’s the moment they are getting to know each other and the confidence for great conversations is about to emerge. It's almost like any of us on a first date. We begin by speaking little, the essential, until the conversation flows without anxiety or hesitation. And this is where you listen or you give up listening. My first date with this record is being seductive.
When you gain confidence you are already in Sjøorm. Klaus is the key point of the whole track but you can not escape from the drums of Nuno Morão. He grabs you, plays with your ears and pulls for you in a very stimulating conversation full of little refinements in which the double bass fills the space with a genius subtlety.
The sun is almost set and she is out of breath.
Her naked feet touch the snow
by the house with a view to the lake.
This could be the beginning of the tale that the Hamar Trio makes me want to write! The desire to put the sound environments into words. A perfect record to be a tremendous soundtrack. And you quickly enter the thirteen minutes and thirty-two seconds of Sour apple. The music that doesn't need comments and that can be illustrated like this:
Step by step, in a forest at dusk,
the shadow of a slim silhouette runs
frantically through the footpaths in
the midst of bushes bent by the wind.
She laid down and let herself fall asleep
between the moonlight and the sweat
running down her chest.
It is now two o'clock and I’m listening Yesterday is Here. It is the well deserved end for a wonderful record that completely fills me. The music breathes and leaves us in suspense, so many times, until the next note. Second by second the breath of Klaus holds us and what may sound little, after all is enormous and fills us with curiosity in the search for another and another detail that can go unnoticed. I would end my tale like this:
- Yesterday is Here - she muttered
while taking off her red dress
to the sound of the doublebass
strings reverberating.
I hope to follow closely the work of Hamar Trio!
*Thanks to Ricardo Nunes for the help with the translation of some parts.
Credits
Klaus Ellerhusen Holm | clarinet alto saxophone
Hernâni Faustino | double bass
Nuno Morão | drums percussion
Recorded November 2016 at Salão Brazil, Coimbra by José Martins and
at SMUP, Parede by John Klima | Mixed and mastered by Nuno Morão at
ScratchBuilt
Produced by Hamar Trio | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem
Azul | Design by Travassos | Cover photo by Magdalene Norman | Band
photo by João Duarte