Multiversum

Album review

Multiversum is Jimi Tenor's third album in as many years for Berlin's Bureau B. The first two, 2020's Ny, Hel, Barca and the following year's Deep Sound Learning, were compilations covering different facets of his three-decade career. This bouncy, joyous set is composed entirely of new material recorded in the artist's Helsinki studio using only a tenor sax, flute, synth loops, and drum machines. It is also the stand-alone companion to Tenor's 200-page biography and photo collection, Omniverse – Sounds, Sights and Stories.
The second track, "Life Hugger," presents this album's esthetic in a nutshell. It's an aural illustration of Tenor's ikigai ("joy in living"), demonstrated through his incessant, guiding desire to record and produce music spontaneously and intuitively in D.I.Y. mode in his home studio while employing rudimentary means. In "Life Hugger" a lilting flute and keyboard intro gives way to a primitive, cut-time synthetic beat and a jagged, four-pulse synth vamp before he starts singing: "Hugging the trees/Shooting the breeze/What are friends for?/Gonna sing me a song!" Not the most artful of lyrics perhaps, but they fit the celebratory, springtime groove as he layers in sampled choral vocals, then speaks about the afterlife and adds a flute solo to sampled bassoons. "Jazznouveau" sounds exactly like its title. Flute and tenor saxophone entwine in a hard-bop head atop electric keyboards. Deft flute lines rise above the funky vamp to encircle a scatting vocal as a restrained bassline engages the syncopated beats. While "Uncharted Waters" offers simple loops, ambient backdrops, and mellow funk grooves, it plays around with space and texture too. "Baby Free Spirit" cannily channels the dystopian influence of Suicide as it meets Brazilian rhythms. The brief "Bass Kalimba Dance" weds NOLA-based drum funk, post-bop jazz, 1970s action soundtrack cues, and neo-electro. The blending of drum'n'bass and Oliver Nelson-tinged cinematic jazz-funk on "RajuRaju" is dramatically episodic, and one of the record's finest moments. It sets the tone for the darker, moodier "The Way to Kuusijärvi," whose West African-inspired syncopated drum loops meet atmospheric chords, wind sounds, shimmering flute, and a moaning, Dwight Trible-esuqe vocal. Two-thirds of the way through, the tenor emerges with a slow, modal, bluesy solo atop the humid backdrop. The layered drumming and percussion return, providing contrapuntal accompaniment before the flute joins the tenor on a lyric theme to carry it out. Closer "Bad Trip Good" combines electro beats, layered Latin and Afrobeat percussion loops, and a soulful, dynamic tenor bridging the traditions. It sounds like Fela playing alongside Carl Craig, Eddie Harris, and Les McCann. While it's true that Multiversum as a whole sounds more like a sampler on first listen, each of its tracks is sonically linked in offering at once a summery vibe and an overview of the artist's musical universe.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo