The Verge

For nearly four years, The Verge’s mystifying self-titled debut album sat unreleased, waiting. Written by four musicians during their time at the NTNU jazz school in Trondheim, Norway, each member has since gone on to form their own projects. But they never forgot about the record they created together, one full of heady complexity, jagged angles and trapped-in-a-whirlpool motifs.

The band has now been given a second life by Is It Jazz? Records, who instantly fell in love with the record and knew it needed to be heard, not forgotten.

Drummer Ingvald André Vassbø calls NTNU “a fruitful milieu for musicians,” with the record carved out of elongated jam sessions in-between lectures. “We learned a lot about improvising individually and collectively and how you can use it,” he explains.

“I feel like our music is somewhere right in between free Scandinavian rock, jazz, and heavy improvisational music from the late 60s and early ‘70s,” saxophonist and flautist, Aksel Rønning returns. “We allow ourselves to have long and meditative improvisations. It gives us a lot of room to give our jazz background respect.”

Bushman’s Revenge, Motorpsycho and John Coltrane were all early reference points for a quartet that doesn’t like limitations.

“We never play the same song in the same way twice,” says Vassbø. “The beauty of playing a lot together is that you learn to understand each other’s clichés in a positive way. So you also try to surprise each other which can be very inspiring.

“Even though one person might have come with the initial melody or riff, every song has been collectively arranged and twisted and turned,” he continues. “Making the album was a very collective process. John Coltrane has a very individual voice, but his quartet has a very strong group sound; The Verge is the sound of the four of us.”

As the band’s in-house progger, Vassbø was eager for those influences to bleed into the band’s sound. He cites France’s “genius and underrated” Poil and their “abstract rhythmical patterns” and the Rock In Opposition movement of the ‘70s as key tastemakers. Above all is a desire to approach ideas from atypical angles.

“If there’s a heavy riff, I like to play really light on it like jazz drummer would do so it is more unorthodox,” he says. “We’re always thinking about different ways to play each idea.”

As it stands, there is only one show pencilled in for the band to celebrate the album, but Rønning hopes it will be “fuel in the fire” for a resurrection proper.

It’s a shame this band, with such an explosive chemistry is on the precipice of falling into the one-album-wonder category, but there’s a glint in Rønning’s eye that suggests otherwise – a determination to find a way to make this work.

“It’s sad that we haven’t been able to prioritize this project,” Vassbø agrees. “The album is beautiful emblem of the four of us playing in a room together. We really wanted to get it out into the world.” PWE

PROG FILE:

LINE-UP: Emil Storløkken Åse (guitars), Aksel Rønning (saxophone, flute), Alf Høines (bass), Ingvald André Vassbø (drums)

SOUNDS LIKE: Dizzying, hard-hitting jazz intertwined with King Crimson licks and Motorpsycho grooves

CURRENT RELEASE://The Verge // releases October 4 via Is It Jazz? Records

WEBSITE: https://the–verge.bandcamp.com/

— Phil Weller