Kaleidoscopic

Lars Horntveth is best known as one of the composing masterminds of Jaga Jazzist. The multi-instrumentalist and arranger has the reputation of throwing real curveballs at the listener, knotty key or tempo changes — sometimes many in a row — or the odd sleight of electronic loop hand, both with the band and on his previous solo works. But Kaleidoscopic is something else entirely. This is a single piece of music just under 40 minutes in length that was recorded with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Terje Mikkelsen. Horntveth arranged the work himself. In addition to his clarinets, he also plays acoustic and electric guitars, bass, lap steel, piano, and other keyboards. He and producer Jørgen Traeen did the programming and editing. For all of its diverse musical architecture and stylized sounds, Kaleidoscopic is an intensely listenable and, in many cases, laid-back record. Based on the ideas of a film score — rather than just a soundtrack — and influenced by Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, and Piero Piccioni, there is a near classical feel in much of this work, not merely because of the orchestra, but more in the way extended harmonies relate to the seemingly endless series of melodies that articulate themselves inside the piece. Color, nuance, texture, and imagination are combined to create an atmosphere that is as thoughtfully engaging as it is pleasant to listen to. The use of strings — despite their sheer number — is restrained in terms of dynamic feel. There are no sweeping crescendos — and indeed sometimes the listener wishes for them, or anticipates them coming at any moment though they never arrive. Instead, they are replaced by a series of schematics that seem to create themes, though after they appear once and are departed from, they vanish into ether. That said, this piece isn't difficult to grasp, and it's not amorphous at all; instead, it's rhythmically taut for all the spaciousness of its arrangements, and is pronouncedly lyric for all of its compositional ambition. This set won't be for all fans of Jaga Jazzist, but would certainly appeal to fans of film music, and Italian composers like Piccioni, Ennio Morricone, and Piero Umiliani.