3d and final repress. In the intimate confines of a Kortedala apartment just outside Gothenburg, Gustav Horneij has quietly assembled one of 2024's most compelling statements in spiritual jazz composition. Organic Pulse Ensemble's fifth album, Zither Suite, represents the culmination of a decade-long creative process that transforms modal meditation and ancient Swedish melodies into transcendent chamber folk with deep connections to the spiritual jazz tradition pioneered by Pharoah Sanders and his contemporaries. The album's genesis lies in Horneij's patient approach to modal development - the title track opens with "a bitter sweet bass melody that I first recorded some 10 years ago, but it's been fermenting ever since and finally reached maturity." This process of musical fermentation echoes the extended improvisational techniques that defined spiritual jazz's most transcendent moments, allowing melodic materials to evolve organically over time until they achieve deeper resonance.

The zither that gives the album its name was discovered in a local charity shop, and while it doesn't appear on every track, Horneij describes it as "a crucial part of the feel of the album as a whole. It's the rug that ties the room together." This found instrument philosophy mirrors the spiritual jazz tradition's embrace of unconventional textures and timbres - think Sanders' use of bells, percussion, and extended techniques to create sacred sonic environments. Recorded entirely in Horneij's apartment - with the reassurance that "no neighbours were harmed in the recording process" - Zither Suite demonstrates how intimate domestic spaces can serve as temples for serious musical meditation. The album's chamber-like intimacy creates the same sense of sacred enclosure that characterized the most powerful spiritual jazz sessions, where musicians gathered to explore consciousness through extended modal improvisation.

The connection to modal jazz becomes most explicit in "Jämtland," based on an old Swedish folk melody reportedly played by musicians in Jämtland as early as the late 1700s. Horneij's treatment of this ancient material employs the same reverent yet exploratory approach that spiritual jazz masters brought to traditional melodies, using modal frameworks to unlock deeper spiritual and emotional content within familiar forms. This folk melody's historical depth - with roots stretching back to the late 1700s - provides the kind of ancient grounding that spiritual jazz practitioners sought in African American musical traditions, Eastern philosophy, and various world music sources. The county of Jämtland's ongoing claims of independence add another layer of spiritual resistance that echoes the liberation themes central to the spiritual jazz movement.

The Organic Pulse Ensemble project consistently demonstrates Horneij's ability to create meditative musical environments that invite deep listening and contemplative engagement. The album's approach to rhythm, melody, and texture suggests familiarity with the extended modal explorations that defined albums like Sanders' Karma and Thembi, where repetitive melodic cells were developed into transcendent sonic journeys. For collectors of spiritual jazz and modal chamber music, Zitter Suite offers evidence that the consciousness-expanding approaches pioneered by Sanders, Alice Coltrane, and their contemporaries continue to find expression in unexpected cultural contexts, transforming Swedish folk materials through the same reverent yet exploratory spirit that defined spiritual jazz's golden era.