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Album:
Moro
(LAMP008)

Release Date:
March 2007

Artist:
Splint!

Release Date:
April 2007

Tracklisting:
Fooj
Sintjom
Bommosytsy
Ittobåt
Tannin
Dammas
Dappysch
Sandyn
Angublans
Banstånen
Dossambon

Before joining Splint!, each of the members toured extensively through the years as part of various constellations, but never as a group. Even so, this musical marriage is a successful one, not only because all four are very talented and experienced musicians, but also because they are good friends who want to have a bit of fun.

This naive enthusiasm is reflected in the album's concept and of course its title; 'Moro' means fun in Norwegian, and is also the word for 'baby' in Greek. Further more, the track titles are distorted words that the band's children mumbled when they first started to speak. Under this spirit the band was able to approach the music in a fresh manner, without any inhibitions or preconceptions, delivering something that is both mature but at the same time honest and non-pretentious.

The recording session for 'Moro' took place in Lundberg's red cottage on the Swedish countryside outside Ulricehamn. A few intense days of playing, eating, drinking and discussing the meaning of life resulted in many hours of improvised music, which was edited down without any overdubs to form the album. The main element that defines the sound of Splint! is jazz improvisation with a strong electronic identity. In this way they share a lot with Norwegian supergroup Supersilent, something that shouldn't surprise, as that band's drummer Jarle Vespestad used to play in an earlier version of Splint! and Nils-Olav Johansen, Splint!'s guitarist, has been guest with Vesslefraekk (what Supersilent used to be called before renaming itself).

Carefully combining the academic with the experimental, the acoustic with the electronic, the melodic with the atonal, Spint! have created an album that is a prime example of contemporary electroacoustic jazz. Without the need to impose or impress, they have taken raw materials and forged them into something that amuses, surprises, puzzles and excites us, just like a good toy does in the hands of a child.

REVIEWS:

london milk blog (milkfactory)
April 2007
Formed in 2004 by Swedish artist Johannes Lundberg, Splint! bring together some of the finest improv musicians of the Scandinavian scene, including Lundberg’s compatriot drummer and percussionist Jon Fält and Norway’s Gunnar Halle (trumpet, electronics) and Nils-Olav Johansen (guitar, keyboards, electronics). All have served with various avant-garde formations, including a stint as part of Veslefrekk, the earlier incarnation of Supersilent, for Johansen. 

The band has often been likened to Supersilent but their approach, which explores more defined musical lines, sets Splint! slightly closer to the likes of Food, Humcrush, or to a lesser extend Wibutee. They however share with the seminal Norwegian quartet a taste for highly contrasting pieces, which is demonstrated at length on this playful debut album. 

Claiming inspiration from jazz visionaries such as Miles Davis, Alice Coltrane or Ornette Coleman, Splint! process these with contemporary technology, applying electronics and samples to create a series of rather diverse compositions, ranging from incredibly dense and free to vast atmospheric minimal pieces. Right from the opening track, Halle’s trumpet becomes a clear thread, guiding the listener through cataclysmic clouds of noise and more subtle sonic patterns. On Fooj, he carves a delicate theme as the rest of the band progressively build up delicate layers, but things heat up on the following track, Sintjom, where, caught between dub effects and groovy drums, his lines become harrowingly dense and emotional. 

Later on, a sombre veil of introspection descends on Ittobåt, Tannin and Dammas. Small clusters of electronic debris erupt from all sides and gather into minimal electro-acoustic formations before breaking up and assembling again into new intricate knots. At times, processed voices add to the slight discomfort, but soon clouds dissipate again as Fält activates his grooves once again hesitantly on Dappysch before the quartet takes a turn towards chaotic electro-acoustic with Sandyn and Angublans. Here, the soundscapes are more hectic and intense, but the groove remains largely at bay while the band lay down their experiments. The closing two tracks see Splint! once again slipping into more intimate and subdued moods, but unlike before, these two pieces appear more opened and light, with refined soundscapes bringing the energy levels right down. 

Splint!’s debut is at once playful and spiritual, with accessible moments and complex experimentations surprisingly well balanced all the way through. As they combine a classic acoustic vision with highly effective electronics, the quartet create here a piece of work which in turn excites, intrigues and fascinates.

god is in the tv
March 2007
Artists who build their output around punctuation usually mean either acts whose tongues and cheeks are forever estranged (Godspeed! You! Black! Emperor!) or films to avoid like the plague (Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot), but newcomers Splint! seemingly shrug off the stereotypes with their debut LP Moro. Keen to add their name to the roll call of IDM pioneers extending the classification in all directions, they sign their tracks with snare-drum subtitles and let trumpets, trombones and sax get first dibs on the microphone pecking order. On paper it might sound like an idea up there with rebranding the Post Office, but the end result is as original as it is noble, and at least partially expiates the jazz genre after the satirical wallop it took from The Fast Show's Louis Balfour. Nice. 

The eleven pieces that make up the album try to get as far away from each other as possible, and together concoct a mosaic of noises more hooky than Del Boy's swag bag. Bommosytsy is one for the fidgeters; a three-minute migraine of purring jungle and drum machines gone eppy, whereas the more docile Dammas feeds sine wave scribbles into a dawn hum. Whether they're mashing the synth pads or crooning out a jazz ditty, the band give it their all, imbuing their music with a strangely peripheral production that seems to segue with the white noise of your listening environment. The digital mewling of Ittobåt is basement-spooky, and features some of the most skin-creeping feline distortion since the BBC's Ghostwatch broadcast. Anyone who can listen to it in the dark is officially a doublehard bastard. Fooj, on the other hand, gives delicate trumpets the head start in a light mix of guitars, electronics and wafer-thin production, creating a tune that goes better with your morning routine than that first cup of splosh. 

Surprisingly, the sound effects and jazz elements that provide the genome for Moro coalesce neatly, and more often than not when the coin is flipped it lands on its edge rather than plain old heads or tails. Angublans rattles with what sounds like someone hoovering up the Clangers (you can even hear the Froglets cluck excitedly in the background), and Tannin provides one of the album's more tuneful moments as corrupt melodic glitch is sloshed round in a conical flask. These both play second fiddle in the tempo championships to the lively but ultimately directionless Sandyn, whose whirling Meccano samba is as restless and virulent as a scrapie contagion. It goes to show how the band really put their hand in when it comes to as many different approaches to songwriting as they can muster; in fact, the only real thing the compositions all have in common is an underlying noirish menace, like Nathan Johnson's swingingly squeamish Brick soundtrack. The tension doesn't germinate in quite such a linear way, but it's up to you whether or not that's a good or a bad thing. 

The quirky nature of their style means you might get seasick if you try to strip each track down to its components, but on the whole Splint! fairly martial the little pockets of racket they serve up over the course of the record. Their signature sound might be a bit shaky at times - sort of Guy Fawkes post-interrogation - and, as with many albums skulking in the more obscure wings of the IDM labyrinth, the more churlish listeners won't hear much past the skittery stampede of smoky breakbeat. But if you approach the thing in its entirety you can feel the pull of the music's current, as well as the hours of brainstorming they've tried to refine into their fifty-two minute showreel. Moro is a frenetic discourse of jazz gone wonky, and certainly an interesting shot in the arm for an ailing musical caste. (rating: 3/5)