Wako is celebrating 10 years as a band and releasing their sixth album! It is an album that in several ways sums up their incredible journey as good friends and band, and which reflects that we are now dealing with four experienced men, who still have a lot on their minds. On "Ut av det nye" they have gone back to how it all started, and we are presented nine songs by a purely acoustic quartet. Clear jazz references from an exceptionally well-copordinated collective with virtuosic solo outbursts. They give us beautiful ballads, pompous stories, as well as playful and free musical exposure. Øra are sure that "Ut av det nye" will stand as one of jazz Norway's strongest albums in recent years, and we now have the pleasure of presenting it to you.

“Ut av det nye” is the sequel to their critically acclaimed self-titled "Wako" (and "Wako - Live in Oslo") where the band researched their own limits both through musical collaboration partners and in the studio. This work was praised by the critics - Aftenposten could report that "this is how jazz is kept alive'', Dagens Næringsliv stated that Wako has "worked its way to the first division with an intelligent, melodic and sharp version", Dagsavisen said that they "keep the party going until the last note", while Romsdal's Budstikka simply named the live album "one of the strongest Norwegian releases of the year".

As on their previous records, the songs are written by Martin Myhre Olsen and Kjetil Mulelid, with one exception - an incredibly beautiful ballad contribution from bassist Bárður Reinert Poulsen. Rawness and romance pulses side by side. The music intertwines order and chaos, dissonance and consonance, light and shadow, and other forms of madness and harmony in a unique way. It is simply a demonstration of how Wako treats the acoustic jazz quartet format. What is repeated on "Ut av det nye" is how mature the music sounds. All four of them are in their early 30s, and if you have followed Wako's path it's clear that some long maturation steps have been taken since the start in 2012 at the legendary "Jazzlinja" in Trondheim. Wako plays with an authority and personality that places them at the forefront of Nordic jazz, and it has been mentioned on several occasions that Wako stands as one of the most dynamic and innovative groups on today's jazz scene. This is confirmed with their sixth album.

Individually, the musicians can also be seen as soloists and have their own strong voices on the jazz scene, as well as in projects such as the Norwegian Grammy Award winning bands Hegge and Flukten, Norwegian Grammy Award nominees Siril Malmedal Hauge and Megalodon Collective, as well as the Espen Berg trio and the Kjetil Mulelid Trio, which stand as two of Norway's leading piano trios of the present.

Wako are releasing their fifth record, a live album that further establishes them as one of Norway's leading jazz groups, and recalls their active touring nature. The album displays the band's unique musical palette, which is augmented by four phenomenal guests. The album also features three songs of pure quartet joy, from Oslo Jazz Festival 2020. This is an album that Øra believes puts Norwegian music in a particularly positive light beyond Norway's borders.

To emulate the grandiose and eclectic character of Wako’s eponymous fourth album, the release concert at National Jazzscene in Oslo - Norway's premier jazz venue - was played with four guest musicians on stage. Tore Brunborg, Kyrre Laastad, Adrian Løseth Waade & Lars Horntveth - some of the finest jazz musicians there are in Norway. On November 6th 2020, the day of the concert, a new lockdown was announced in Oslo, and the concert with Wako and friends was to be the last with an audience in Oslo for almost half a year. Wako's "Live in Oslo" is the story of an evening where musicians played and the audience listened, because they didn’t know when they would have the opportunity again.

With four studio records and hundreds of live performances under their belt, Wako plays with an authority and personality that places them at the forefront of Nordic jazz. Wako is one of the most dynamic and innovative groups on today's jazz scene, and has built a solid fan base and garnered recognition from critics near and far. According to Mark Sullivan (All About Jazz - US), Wako is "a Norwegian jazz collective with a real collective sound", and the previous album "Wako" (Ear phonogram, 2020) was put on the top list of Jazzwise (UK) both in March and April 2020. Wako has taken their ever-evolving musicality and creativity with them around Europe, and done renditions of their music live both as a quartet, with the Oslo String ensemble, and with trumpet virtuoso Arve Henriksen, among others. The scope of the music is always carefully adjusted to the audience, environment and musical material, which means that the concerts are not only superlative, but also unique experiences. In short, Wako is one of the most impressive young live groups today. Individually, the musicians can also be seen in projects such as Norwegian grammy winner Hegge, norwegian grammy nominees Megalodon Collective, Espen Berg trio, Kjetil Mulelid Trio and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra.

In this, their follow-up to "Urolige sinn", Wako have adopted new creative processes, approaches, and methods, as well as an exceptional roster of guest musicians. "Wako" is an album of diversity, a jazz and improvisational banquet, a cornucopia of compositional exploration, and – above all – very aptly named, as it is resoundingly "Wako".

Once again, Martin Myhre Olsen and Kjetil André Mulelid's compositions interweave order and chaos, dissonance and harmony, light and shade, and all manner of musical grit and gusto in a unique fashion. Moments of pensive serenity collapse into ecstatic frenzies. Other moments hint at rock, perhaps even pop music, while others are saturated in colorful abstract expressionism. With such an utter disregard for purism, and a will to venture deep into the sonic unknown, Wako creates a unique musical dialect, if not a completely new language. 

The augmentation of the line-up adds textural layers that alter the mood, highlight the drama, and heighten the tension (sometimes almost to breaking point). Featuring strings (not an entirely new occurrence in the Wako canon – see "Modes for All Eternity", their album with Oslo Strings), both solo (Adrian Løseth Waade, violin) and trio (Kaja Constance Rogers, violin; Isa Caroline Holmesland, viola; Kaja Pettersen, cello), where elements of Zappaesque baroque can merge with Sibelian swells or angular pizzicato, or simply launch into gypsy-like combustion. Rob Waring's vibraphone comps and mirrors the zig-zag licks, while Arve Henriksen's trumpet and mercurial sampling contributions highlight Beatles-style shuffling grooves with (semi-)ironic big band stylings á la James Last and Bert Kaempfert. The saxophone contributions from Jonas Kullhammar, Espen Reinertsen, and Sissel Vera Pettersen complement, contrast, and augment Martin Myhre Olsen's reed work, while the additional synth from Reinertsen and the vocals from Pettersen add new colors to the whole sound.

Press:

- “a splendid album” - Written in Music (NL) 

“Heaps of bright ideas and fresh-sounding jazz” - Jazzwise (UK)
- Best of March - Mike Flynn, Jazzwise / EuropeJazzNetwork (UK)

- "Arranged musical wrestling" - Lars Mossefinn, Dag og Tid (NO)

- “A definitive statement for Norwegian Jazz” - All About Jazz (US)

- "A deffently must have in your album collection" - Musikkplaneten (SE)

“Thought-over and creative music from a full-grown quartet” - Vital Weekly (NL) 

- “Calling Wako an adventurous jazz band is actually too limited” - Dick Hovenga (NL)

"Wako has in a short time worked its way up to the first division” - Audun Vinger, DN (NO)

-“a musical journey which brings epic goodness in modernist Dancefloor Jazz” - Nitestylez (DE)

"An album that summarizes a significant period of this busy, innovative band" - Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts (IL)

"Covers plenty of diverse ground, from the rippling, strings-enhanced and chamber-like to abstracted boogie grooves and rocking rumbustious fun" - JazzJournal (UK)

- “Wako's fourth album might be its least cohesive to date, yet here's that rare instance where such a lack is actually a positive thing” - Textura (CA)

- “If you like something diverse and intriguing with a vivacious blend of cross-pollinated jazz seeds that have grown into something fresh, wild and adventurous, this is an album well worth checking out.” - UKVIBE (UK)

//

- “Åpenheten i tilnærmingen har ført Wako til nye steder og tilført musikken en friskhet som smitter. Jeg tror de kan ha funnet seg selv.” - Arild Andersen, Jazznytt feb 2020

-Jeg elsker også «Wako Amok», og selv om de ikke går helt amok, så slår de seg løs så det holder - Dagsavisen

- “Man føler synapsene knatre og hjernevevet spire og gro når man lytter til Wako. Sjekk bare den lyriske «Skumringsbeltet» med vibrafonisten Rob Waring – her er produksjonen helt vill” - Lars Junge, Stemmegaffel (NO) 

- “Åpenheten i tilnærmingen har ført Wako til nye steder og tilført musikken en friskhet som smitter. Jeg tror de kan ha funnet seg selv.” - Arild Andersen, Jazznytt feb 2022

4.5/5 - All About Jazz 

4/5 - UKVIBE

4/5 - Written in Music

8/10 - Stemmegaffel (NO) 

3.5/5 - Jazz Journal (UK)

3/5 - Jazzwise 

March top chart album - Mike Flynn, Jazzwise (EuropeJazzNetwork)

Hot picks from Jazzwise crew Jukebox, April 2020 (UK)

"Urolige sinn" – the new album from Wako – is equal parts atmosphere and energy. Smoky moods envelop runaway train rhythms, while the contemplative can seem like a mask for a chaos ready to erupt at any second. This is a series of dramaturgical tone poems, triple-distilled concepts, their purity and brevity carrying only the essentialsounds – but you shouldn't take this as meaning "minimalism": here it means intense concentration, perfect focus. There is a build and release of tension, occasional hints of a threatened dissonance in the midst of melody, or glimpses of golden harmony emerging from chattering agitation. There are technicolour highways through chiaroscuro dreamscapes. There is what could easily be the incidental music for an urban hallucination of a heated conversation between Pharoah Sanders and Man Ray, or Erik Satie antagonized by Friedrich Nietzsche. Traces of joy mix with stains of sorrow, the everyday life intertwines with sinuous and wandering reveries. This is realism walking in expressionist shoes along a well-paved path.

That path was created by Wako, both as a collective and as individuals. Where similar groups would regard a "jazz composition" as merely a framework for an extended solo (or three), Wako operate as a unified musical consciousness, thinking, dreaming, reacting and planning together. While pianist Kjetil André Mulelid and saxophonist Martin Myhre Olsen each take individual composer credits on several tracks, the group coherence and synergy means that bassist Bárður Reinert Poulsen and drummer Simon Olderskog Albertsen are integral to the final delivery of the music. The Wako philosophy is one of "music first"; "Urolige sinn" is that philosophy made flesh.

Press:

- "An entirely open-ended high-risk sort of improvised group playing. It is as if they have abandoned all unnecessary things for lightness of travel. What they need, they will find." - Fritz Balwit, Audiophile Audition (US)

- "What I like about it:   I like how the lovely melodicism of this recording is totally at the mercy of the forces of motion, and I like how Wako shows no limit to their ability to shape it.  I like how the beauty of these pieces resonates with no less strength during passages of heavy dissonance than those times when a melody is sighed out peacefully.  I like the pacing of the varying motions, so that changes present themselves with a certain force, but never to the point of jarring extremes." - Bird is the Worm (US)

- "Wako is a Norwegian jazz collective with a truly collective sound." - All About Jazz (US)

- “Wako has produced something on Urolige Sinn that feels fresh, bold, and exciting. It's the kind of release that when the initial listen's done, you might want to hear again immediately” - Ron Schepper, Textura (CA)

- "Well prepared and inspired spontaneous creativity" -  Terje Mosnes, Jazz i Norge (NO)

- "It is a solid album, full of inspiring and inspiring pieces, made of essential sounds, simple compositions and wide-ranging atmospheres, and they provide new life to the new wave of Nordic jazz music that the band is part of." - Samuele Conficoni, Music Map (IT)

- “Twelve songs in a good half-hour is all this Norwegian quartet needs to get you completely captivated” - Georges Tonla Briquet, JazzHalo (BE)

- "All four musicians operate as a tight, unified musical consciousness that focuses on coherence, synergy and emphatic interplay." - Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts* (IS)

- "Capable of creating deeply philosophical compositions that seem to crystallize essential human emotions.  This is the band’s third album and I very much hope that their musical journey continues." - Jazz Views (UK)

- “But this relatively short per track runtime does not prevent the quartet from providing quite a bunch of magical moments on "Urolige Sinn". An excellent Jazz-oriented album that every genre lover should consider to add to his collection for a reason. Check!” - Nitestylez.de (DE)

- “These guys have no lack of ideas. It’s really inventive music performed by a very tight quartet. Their sound is

very consistent and together. Superb!” - Vital Weekly (NL)

"It is both a harmonious and a tear-jerking journey through a troubled mind. An instrumental poem about our Nordic soul." - Lira Musikkmagasin (SE)

//

- “Korte utspill av friere improvisasjoner, mens de lengre låtene er mer strukturerte og melodiske, gjerne smektende vakre.” - Geir Rakvaag, Dagsavisen (NO)

- “Besøker en rekke meningsfylte steder i musikken og menneskelivet” - Jazznytt (NO)

- "Vi snakker musikk som faktisk får tankene til å gå i retning Belonging-kvartetten, sjøl om det låter helt annerledes." - Tor Hammerø / Nettavisen (NO) 

- "Det låter gull i hodetelefonene." - stemmegaffel (NO)

Modes for All Eternity» is a daring new conceptual album by the nordic jazz quartet Wako in collaboration with string ensemble Oslo Strings. It will take the listener on a journey through ancient times; featuring chilling suspense and drama, introducing a five-part suite and honor truly remarkable persons such as the great Greek lyrists Sappho and Emily Dickinson.

Oslo Strings:

Kaja Constance Rogers - violin

Isa Caroline Holmesland - viola

Kaja Fjellberg Pettersen - cello

Press:

- "It is an engaging work of expressive reach and austere beauty." - Fritz Balwit, Audiophile audition (US)

- "This is a gorgeous album, and the music would melt even the blackest heart" - Bird is The Worm (US)

- "The musicians delivers in a way that makes this album a true joy to listen to" - Jan Granlie / Salt Peanuts (NO)

- "This music draws deeply on lots of ideas and traditions but brings them together in a very personal and distinctive sound" - Mike Collins / London Jazz News (UK)

- "Beautiful, contrastful and controlled themes combined with flowing and dynamic development" - Olav Opsvik, Jazznytt (NO)  

- "A cooperation with buoyancy and originality" - Terje Mosnes / Jazz i Norge (NO)

"The overall impression is organic and extremely lively" - Vinyl-Fan (DE)

- "The music sounds not only naturally, but also intriguingly organically, especially in terms of bold improvisations that give us the idea of an almost musical (King Of Kings)" - Laboratorium Muzycznych Fuzji (PL)

//

- "har på et usedvanlig personlig vis makta å skape musikk og forutsetninger for at alle sju skal kunne møtes på like fot i et landskap som henter hemningsløst fra både et klassisk og et improvisatorisk utgangspunkt." - Tor Hammerø, Tor de Jazz (NO)

- "eit spennande og fargerikt resultat." - Roald Helgheim, Dagsavisen (NO)

Fra den første dype akkorden på åpningslåten “Jakob” til det siste buestrøket i “Seven Years”, holdes lytteren fast i den unike klangverden til Wako. Komposisjonene utvikles selvsikkert med sprudlende detaljer, og improvisasjonene flyter på lekent vis. Wako presenterer her 60-tallets jazzmusikk i en ny nordisk drakt. Platen er et friskt pust fra fire unge nordiske musikere med bakgrunn i band som Trondheim Jazzorkester, Espen Berg Trio og The Fjords. Med «The Good Story» introduseres Wako på den norske og internasjonale jazzscenen, med musikk som vil fortsette å vokse og overraske deg ved hver gjennomlytting!

Press:

- “Jeg kjenner meg fri i tid og rom med dette praktfulle albumet” - Roald Helgheim, Dagsavisen

- “...noe forteller meg at Wako kommer til å etablere seg i Europatoppen lenge før Rosenborg.” - Tor Hammerø 

- "Sjarmerer med en god dynamikk og en dose blottstilt sårbarhet" - Jazznytt