Peter Brötzmann Steve Swell Paal Nilssen - Live In Copenhagen (2017)

Live in Copenhagen offers another plan, focused on the high-octane, immediate intensity of this heavyweight trio. This is the second album of the trio, recorded live as the debut album, this time in the Jazzhouse club in Copenhagen, Denmark on April 2016. Brötzmann and Nilssen-Love have been working together since that last phase of Brötzmann Tentet, continuing as a duo and with ad-hoc trios with Japanese koto player Michiyo Yagi, cellist Lonberg-Holm and Italian electric bass player Massimo Pupillo, but Swell joins them for the first time during on stage, on the trio's first European tour on February 2015.

The trio goes nuclear on the opening piece, the 30-minute “Copenhagen Maneuvers”. Brötzmann, in top fiery form, outlines the urgent, angry theme, sets the trio dynamics on a volcanic course that gains more volume and more momentum, but later he varies the atmosphere with tortured-melodic themes. Swell and Nilssen-Love keep challenging Brötzmann with imaginative, extended breathing techniques and equally muscular percussive work.

The other, shorter pieces highlight further the rich and profound vocabulary of this trio. “Actionable Rhetoric” surprises with its reserved lyricism. Brötzmann and Swell sing patiently the touching melody, colored beautifully with delicate percussive work by Nilssen-Love. “Expressionable Ephemera” resumes the trio's explosive, muscular mode, balanced as a tight, organic unit. “Persistent Repercussions” enables Nilssen-Love to take the lead and set a loose, polyrhythmic atmosphere that invites Swell and later Brötzmann to explore playful melodies that enjoy a tough-swinging pulse. The last, shortest “Last Night Was, For Sure” is the most poetic one, introduced by Swell otherworldly breaths, followed by Brötzmann moving melodic theme, immediately echoed by Swell and resonated by Nilssen-Love cymbals work, slowly building its tension, but releasing it in subtle, compassionate manner.