Little Balcony Little Balcony

• 1 Again 04:17
• 2 As Others Were 04:21
• 3 #1 01:16
• 4 No Response 04:37
• 5 #2 02:14
• 6 Kite 02:53
• 7 Little Balcony 03:05
• 8 Get-Together Song 04:21
• Total Runtime 27:04

Info for Little Balcony

Little Balcony is a Norwegian jazz-pop quartet from Oslo. Their music tries to capture the essence of variations in every day life. The album «Little Balcony» captures this through humor, seriousness and openness. With strong lyrics and melodies the group creates a compound expression that strengthen their stories.

The ensemble was established when the four members met at The Norwegian Academy of Music. The members has backgrounds from different genres and each member uses their own musical background to shape the music. On the album the band chose to concentrate the tunes into shorter versions with fever solos. This sharpens the focus to the melodies and the lyrical interaction and makes it a contrast to the live format.

This is the debut album by Norwegian Jazz quartet Little Balcony comprising of vocalist Thea Emilie Wang, pianist Martin Sandvik Gjerde, bassist Henrik Sandstad Dalen and drummer Kenneth Enes Kristoffersen. Two guest musicians appear on a couple of tracks. The album presents eight original tunes, seven composed by Kristoffersen and one by Dalen. Wang wrote all the lyrics except for three tunes on which they were co-written by Kristoffersen and Dalen wrote the lyrics to the song he also composed.

The music is very melodic and almost entirely melancholic, with strong Nordic atmosphere and dark lyricism. The songs are relatively short, concentrating on the delivery of the tune without much improvisation or soloing, but the Jazzy feeling is there at all times.

Wang sings in English, which is a mistake, as her pronunciation of the lyrics is imprecise, but her vocal delivery is very interesting, theatrical and highly emotional. She is at the epicenter of the music at all times, skillfully using also vocalese, when appropriate.

The piano trio performs in a wonderful minimalist manner, with the piano stating the melody lines and the rhythm section keeping the pulse of the music beating, which is a wonderful example of "less is more". One of the tracks is a solo bass performance, which is definitely one of the highlights of the album. Although the album might be perceived as a Pop / Jazz effort, it is by no means trivial or simplistic and except for the title track it is even quite challenging. Overall this is definitely a very ambitious debut effort, which leaves us all waiting for more, especially since the album's duration is rather short (under half an hour).

Thea Emilie Wang, vocals
Martin Sandvik Gjerde, piano
Henrik Sandstad Dalen, bass
Kenneth Enes Kristoffersen, drums

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