Jazz /
The Ear Behind The Airport
Pianist Jonas Cambien, bassist Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard and drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen have been indispensable to followers of the eclectic creative music scene in Oslo for years; among others with bands such as The Handover, Reôlo, Maca Conu, Delish, Cortex and Sulida. Until now, only lucky concertgoers have been able to experience their excellent improvising trio, but fortunately Motvind Records are doing something about that! "The Ear Behind the Airport" is a multifaceted being. Between…
Moder
Henriette Eilertsen's solo debut from 2021, "Poems for flute", is regarded by many as one of the classics in the Motvind Records catalogue. Since then, many concertgoers have also been thrilled by the flautists fresh trio, with Joel Ring (cello & electronics) and Øystein Aarnes Vik (drums). Finally, we are all approaching the opportunity to dive deep into this warm, mysterious and alluring sonic bath. Henriette Eilertsen Trio's debut album "Moder" is characterized by captivating compositions, an…
Andreas Røysum Ensemble With Marvin Tate
Norwegian clarinetist Andreas Røysum and the legendary Chicago-based poet / artist Marvin Tate met in 2023, when both were performing at Berlin Jazzfest. “Andreas Røysum Ensemble with Marvin Tate” is the fourth album by the ensemble, and contains the first recorded fruits of this meeting of visionaries. The new-found collaborators bring out the best in each other, reaching new levels of expression and purpose.
Dig into richly evocative and multi-layered poetry, expansive long form compositions a…
Miman IV-X
*2026 stock* Motvind Records stalwarts Miman mark their 10th year as a working band with “X-IV”, their first release since 2021. Including four very different albums, it gives both old and new listeners the opportunity to get to know some of the different musical landscapes in which Miman are right at home. «It doesn’t make much sense to apply a lot of the usual metrics to both the music created by the Scandinavian trio Miman or the way the group operates. Its members possess deep curiosity and …
Daughter of War
"Daughter of War" is the debut album of the new four-piece band It Was Her Idea. Vocalist Juliana Venter and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love have already worked together in Paal’s PNL Circus project and wanted to continue that collaboration in a different direction — to explore other aspects they touched on in Circus and to work with material not solely composed by Paal. Their first choice for bassist was Ole Morten Vågan, who on his own is an orchestra. Ole Morten and Paal have long been friends with…
What Just Happened?
"What Just Happened?" is an album that collects four pieces by Paal Nilssen-Love, composed for smaller configurations of his Large Unit ensemble. The pieces are for specific instruments: snare drum, saxophone and tuba — from three to six performers. This act of stripping the ensemble down to single instruments does not mean sparse minimalism, quite the opposite, as Paal explores the possibilities — and limits — of the individual instruments. Contributing to the music's quality is the incredible …
Calls!
"Calls!" is the third album by Paal Nilssen-Love Circus, following "Pairs of Three" (2022) and the live recording "Turn Thy Loose" (2025). Circus originally emerged from Large Unit as a side project but quickly grew into its own band. The group performs music composed by Paal, and in live performances the musicians are free to play any parts of any song at any time. On this studio recording they take a different approach: the songs were recorded separately and carefully produced. On the live alb…
Steam Waterfall
«Steam Waterfall» is the second album in an expanded version of Paal Nilssen-Love's Large Unit. But this isn't the same Extra Large Unit you heard on «More Fun Please» from 2018. This is a live recording from the Oslo Jazz Festival in 2022 featuring core members of Large Unit along with a range of younger musicians Paal had met through workshops and teaching in the two years leading up to the concert. The number of musicians heard is 25—the largest Unit to date—but during the performance, there …
Hohai Bushi
«Hohai-Bushi» is the meeting between Paal Nilssen-Love and his Large Unit ensemble, here in a 13-person lineup, and the legendary Japanese musician Akira Sakata. Since the 1960s, Sakata has been one of the leading saxophonists in free jazz and improvisation, starting with the Yamashita Trio, continuing with his own ensembles, and later transitioning to younger musicians from various genres, including noise and experimental music. Akira Sakata is a living legend from the last 50 years of radical …
Non Sonett
*250 copies limited edition* Aspen is very proud to introduce ‘Non Sonett’ by the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble.
This ensemble is a pioneering Norwegian chamber group whose work on ECM and Hubro has redefined the boundaries between jazz, contemporary composition and folk music.
Across seven albums, the ensemble has developed a highly distinctive language built on restraint, timbral nuance and collective interplay, placing it among the most influential European ensembles of the 21st century. Brin…
Thoughts
"When Freysteinn Gíslason sent me the raw recordings from Sundlaugin in Mosfellsbær, I heard immediately what he and his ensemble had captured: a group of musicians operating at the outer edges of what jazz can contain. My job wasn't to shape these performances in the traditional sense—they were already fully realized—but to bring clarity and force to a vision that refused easy categorization.
Thoughts is an album that exists in extremes. Not the extremes of volume or aggression alone, but of em…
Rik
Norwegian saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Harald Lassen returns with Rik, a vibrant and exploratory new album that picks up the threads of his acclaimed Balans - the album that earned him a Spellemannprisen (Norwegian Grammy) - and weaves them into something stranger, softer, and more surprising. “It’s the little brother,” Lassen says. “Same blood, same environment, but making different choices.” Across seven tracks, RIK builds a world that is both cinematic and deeply intimate.…
Døgnville
On Friday, September 5, Liv Andrea Hauge Trio releases its third album, Døgnville, on Norwegian label Hubro. The record explores the feeling of being “døgnvill” – a Norwegian term describing the sensation of being out of sync with time and reality, like during jet lag or insomnia. The music inhabits this liminal space between structure and freedom, consciousness and dream. Half of the compositions were written while pianist and composer Liv Andrea Hauge was bedridden with a high fever – in a sem…
Minnesota
Norwegian coastal culture meets American dreams in Trond Kallevåg’s most cinematic work yet. Imagine Ry Cooder, Daniel Lanois, and David Lynch sharing a rowboat on a misty West Norwegian morning – that’s the world of Minnesota. With Minnesota, guitarist and composer Trond Kallevåg deepens his image-rich sound – a warm, wistful universe where the atmosphere of Norway’s rugged west coast drifts seamlessly into the wide horizons of the American Midwest. Drawing inspiration from traditional music, j…
Himmel Over Hav
Over the past 15 years, Hanna Paulsberg has established herself as one of the most vital and heartfelt voices on the Norwegian jazz scene. A highly sought-after saxophonist, Paulsberg moves effortlessly between musical genres in her many projects — from the pop/soul/jazz trio Gurls, which she co-founded and writes for, to the quartet Flukten, whose sound blends free jazz and folk influences. She’s also part of a Dexter Gordon tribute with Karin Krog, and has contributed to numerous projects with…
New Morning
Collective interplay is essentially about listening and giving space. If ever there was a credo for this ensemble recording, this would be it. Sometimes the soloist or a small group steps forward, other times they play as a large unit. This collective of musicians are connected through old and new friendships, a set of relations that has been formed through two decades of co-creation on stage and in the studio, and their new recording is a reaffirmation of that with an A-side of free improvisati…
Live 1963 (The Lost Recordings)
This is a hitherto unknown recording of the influential Danish composer, pianist, and bandleader Jeppe Zeeberg, dated November 9, 1963. On this recording, Zeeberg is accompanied by a band comprised of several of his generation’s finest musicians. Inspired by the Ellington/Mingus traditions and the new sounds of free jazz emerging from overseas, Zeeberg was the rare individual who could straddle different styles in one performance – even within a single composition. This concert, recorded at Havn…
Drifting
After Mette Henriette’s critically acclaimed, self-titled first recording comes Drifting – and album pervaded by trio conversations of idiosyncratic and original expression. With Johan Lindvall returning on piano, new addition Judith Hamann on cello and herself on saxophone, Mette’s chamber musical elaborations prove of a concentrated and exploratory quality, marked by subtle yet intense interaction. Motifs and recurring patterns crystallize and reveal a concise, intricate narrative. The saxopho…
Arcanum
The Scandinavian project Arcanum brings together four artists all well-known to followers of directions in music at ECM: Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin and Markku Ounaskari. They’ve played together in many permutations over the years, but this is their first album as a quartet. Compositions by Anders Jormin and Trygve Seim, the Finnish traditional “Armon Lapset” (Children of Mercy), and Jormin’s arrangement of Ornette Coleman’s “What Reason Could I Give” are slotted into a programm…
Bristol Silence
Tip! An orchestra that played for Nazis. A silence that lasted for generations. A work that lets this silence speak, sing, and scream. Motvind Records presents John Andrew Wilhite’s monumental piece, Bristol Silence, written for the Motvind Festival and premiered at Hotel Bristol in Oslo in the summer of 2023. In this work Bristol Silence, the double bassist and composer brings to light a chapter of Norwegian music history that has remained in the shadows. Wilhite writes: "Having known that Nazi…