Nakama

Most Intimate is Nakama’s third release. Their previous albums have been very conceptual, dealing with the relation between sound and silence on Before the Storm and then form as something malleable on Grand Line. Most Intimate is different. It is more personal, more transparent and more.., well, intimate. It offers a close-up on the musicians and how they deal with music in different roles. Because even though the music on this album isn’t conceptual, the structure of it is, and it is hard to talk about the music without talking about the structure. Band leader Christian Meaas Svendsen explains: «I wanted to make a collaborative album portraying the musicians as ensemble players, improvisers, soloists and composers. In order to fulfill that vision we decided to write small Dedications to each other. I wrote for Andreas, Andreas for Adrian, Adrian for Ayumi and Ayumi for me. The only rule was that the person who received the dedication was to be omitted from the composition. Each of the dedications are followed by a solo improvisation, or as we have called it here — Gratitude — from the receiver. The solo is then followed by a synthesis of the two former, a short improvised something with all four, but with the dedicator and the receiver swapping instruments. We have called these pieces Unifications. I also made a little theme with a corresponding variation to serve as a wrapping around it all. In addition we made a fifth Unification which is a free interpretation of the aforementioned theme, and in which all of us swap instruments so that we play the one instrument we did not get to play in the other four Unifications. All in all the recording consists of 15 tracks which present the band in literally all possible solo-, duo-, trio- and quartet combinations. The duos are presented on the opening track which is the variation on the theme, the trios on the Dedications, the quartets on the Unifications, and the solos on the Gratitudes. The album can be experienced without this knowledge, but is really structured to be listened to as the way it is grouped - as a question, a response, and a sort of agreement (Dedication, Gratitude, Unification). With the exception of the title theme, none of us had heard any of the other compositions beforehand. We had been touring for 9 days, and I wanted the tour to culminate in a recording session which took advantage of the fatigue we were suffering from. Great things happen when the discerning, analytic and intellectual mind is bypassed, and it is that flavor which Most Intimate is representing.»