Splint! - Moro

       -   A breathtaking collision of jazz and electronics for fans of Arve Henriksen, Supersilent, Shining and Food.

Before joining Splint!, each of the members toured extensively through the years as part of many different projects, but strangely never as a group. Eventually the group of friends decided it was time they should get together and make music as a team which was a successful move, not only because they are four very talented musicians but because they can allow themselves to have fun.

This naive enthusiasm is reflected in the album's concept and of course its title; 'Moro' loosely means fun in Norwegian, and is 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. With 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 unpretentious.

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 carefully without any overdubs to form the album. The main element that defines the sound of Splint! is jazz improvisation with a strong electronic identity, fragments of Alice Coltrane, Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman are buried amongst the electronic rattle-and-scrape of Autechre, and the combination is truly mindblowing. 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 (Supersilent’s previous incarnation).

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 electro-acoustic 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.

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