Elephant9 are a Norwegian power trio whose music may look back a bit, but is firmly rooted in the 21st century. Comprised of keyboard player Ståle Storløkken (from vanguard electronic jazz mavens Supersilent), bassist Nikolai Eilertsen (National Bank), and drummer Torstein Lofthus (Shining), Elephant9 have come up with something that simultaneously references Brian Auger's early Oblivion Express, the 1973 Dark Magus/Agharta period of Miles Davis, the more free-form side of Weather Report's Live in Tokyo, and the Deep Purple of Hush, all with three players and none of them a guitarist. More righteous still is that this trio record from Rune Grammofon, a label that in 2008 has come into its own, has a particular sound, and puts all manner of combinations together in creating a "supergroup" atmosphere. But Elephant9 are totally different. The set was recorded live in the studio, to analog tape. Storløkken stays away from synths for the most part and concentrates on organs (Hammond B-3, church, and Wurlitzer) and Rhodes piano. The grooves here are voluminous, yet they do not remotely sound like the Blue Note/Prestige soul-jazz organ trios of the mid-'60s. Instead, they come from the fringes, from the spaced-out side of electric jazz. They may touch on prog, but that's all; instead, the music is more darkly psychedelic, funky, ruinously loose jazz that pulses with an insistent overdriven energy that puts them in a league of their own.

1		Dodovoodoo
2		I Cover the Mountain Top
3		Skink
4		Hymne
5		Misdirection
6		Doctor Honoris Causa
7		Directions

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