I couldn’t help but be amused that on the day a couple of friends went to Norway to play a gig, it seemed as if the whole of Norway was coming the other way.  This was a showcase for the great Rune Grammofon label, somehow shoe-horned into the London Jazz Festival, featuring Susanna and the Magical Orchestra and In The Country – both recently reviewed here in some form – as well as the mighty improvisation of Supersilent.

SATMO’s set was similar to that they played at The Spitz recently – doing all the covers, the only original being the much-requested encore “Believer”.  Hoxton was shushed temporarily by opener “Enjoy The Silence”, although chatter rose during mid-set lull, before all were a-gawpy at Susanna’s feet as her voice leapt over “Hallelujah” like a horse round Aintree.  Morten Qvenild bantered sweetly; even going as far as too apologise for being in two thirds of the evening’s acts. 

He needn’t have apologised – SATMO and In The Country showed off different sides to his talent, from the understated backdrop to that helluva voice of the former, to the Bleyish piano of the latter.  In The Country played the highlights of thoroughly decent new album Losing Stones, Collecting Bones.  Unfortunately, this included the singing – the drunken man’s post-chucking-out shout-to-the-sky of “Everyone Live Their Life” – but mercifully, “Torch Fishing” was stripped of Marc Ribot’s guitar excesses, and was all the better for it.  Drummer Paal Hausken proved to be the star; tinking on bells and thumping on towels with deftness and sensitive ear.

Supersilent were on ferocious form, riffing ridiculously on the scorched warzone rhythms of last release 7.  They played four pieces, each (I’m guessing) around the fifteen minute mark; time did seem to lose all relevance for much of the performance.  Each would start like a giant and presumably quite dangerous machine cranking into life after several years of inoperation; cogs tentatively meshing together with some degree of metallic grinding, before breaking free from its moorings and thundering deafeningly with unfathomable mechanics.

The first three pieces (I’ll call them “x.1”, “x.2” and “x.3”) were powered up by Arve Henrikssen and Stale Storlokken on trumpet and keyboards respectively.  Drummer Jarle Vespestad would find a route in, Arve would switch to drums, and then with two drummers – and Helge Sten battering away at his electronics – we were inevitably heading down some angry spasmodic routes towards the kind of riotous conclusions heard on 7.1 and 7.2.  The difference was that this time the journey there seemed of less importance; there was little chance of stopping off at viewpoints on the way, more a Vanishing Point style pedal-to-the-floor rush.  A couple of snatched blurry glimpses from the window on the way:  Helge bowing at some sort of electronic stringed instrument and piling on layers to points uncharted by shoegaze on x.2; Arve scat-singing (“jazzzzzzzzzzzzzz” he kept saying; an amusing commentary on their place in the LJF) and encouraging bottle-kicking crowd accompaniment on x.3.

The encore, x.4 obviously, was a different and mischievous creature.  Out of Deathprod crackle escaped an entirely unexpected and regular 4/4, and I found myself in inside-out hard house.  Add to that some of Arve’s throat singing, and some more of Helge’s bowed electronics (sounding by now like a 10,000 strong didgeridoo orchestra), and we were dancing our way to the door with our heads dizzy and ears ringing with the awesome jazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz improvised mutant robotic funk of one of the greatest gigs of the year.