There has long been a creative back-and-forth between modern jazz, psychedelic, and experimental noise rock bands. The Velvet Underground borrowed the extended solos and drones of '60s free jazz, Sonic Youth had close ties with composer Glenn Branca, and John Zorn built a whole oeuvre around his conjoined blend of avant-garde jazz, metal, and sundry aural explorations. It's within this tradition that Finnish-born, Brooklyn-based guitarist Olli Hirvonen has established himself and which he explores on his third solo album, 2022's enveloping Kielo. A conservatory-trained jazz guitarist, Hirvonen draws liberally upon the reflective ECM style of artists like Ralph Towner, the humming shoegaze of bands like My Bloody Valentine, and the pastoral indie rock of Luna. Helping him achieve this stylistic synergy are his bandmates, bassist Marty Kenney and drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell. Together they make a deeply textural sound that feels a lot like who they are, musicians who grew up in the '90s listening to alt-rock and jazz in equal measure. Cuts like the title track and "Erode" are slow-moving epics marked by Hirvonen's shimmering, twangy chords and crunchy dissonant runs. There's also plodding, punk intensity to the way Kenney and Ellman-Bell underpin his guitar work. Try and imagine the Pixies jamming on a doomy ballad as a campfire rages under a dark purple desert sky, and you'll get a sense of the palpable vibe Hirvonen and his trio conjure here. More kinetic textures follow, as on "Outline," where Hirvonen builds a refractory framework of arpeggios that somehow marry the moody spirit of a '60s spy soundtrack to the post-punk energy of bands like Fugazi. There's also the expansive, minor-key dreamscape of "Unceasing," where Hirvonen bends long, moaning notes against a spare sleighbell rhythm, all of which builds to an explosive midsection that sounds like a fiery rocket breaking through Earth's atmosphere. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi

1		Kielo
2		Erode
3		Outline
4		Current
5		Placeholder
6		Lento
7		Unceasing
8		Vegas

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