Pocket Size – Immortality

Pocket Size – Immortality

Mill Hill Productions – 2018

Rock, Prog, Jazz, Instrumental

Rated: ****

Pocket Size Sthlm or simply Pocket Size is the brainchild of composer/guitarist Peter Pedersen. This conceptual musical unit was brought into daylight early 2010. There were some ideas and fragments of songs floating around in the pool of creativity. They were developed together with others. So, two years ago we had Vemood, the first edition of the Cleaning The Mirror series by Swedish jazzy prog outfit Pocket Size. And now they’re back with a second installment (to a trilogy) named Immortality. It feels even more jazzy and exhumes a lot of sixties vibes. It puts the saxophone in a majestic spotlight and Kristian Brink knows how to move around in that diamond shaped glare. Just listen to the Cyclopes And Pine Trees track and feel his whirling dervish dance. The entire album feels like a cool, calm and collected labor of love. And less a laborious birth. Even though it might come across here or there as an extremely complicated tangle of lines it sounds highly natural and vibrates with intensity. You’re in the boiler room now. And it is steamy hot!

(Written by JK)

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Pocket Size – Vemood

Pocket Size – Vemood

MillHill productions – 2016

Rock, Instrumental, Jazz, Prog, Psych, Jam

Rated: ****

As main man Peter Pedersen and the rest of his Pocket Size guns for hire finished up the last record Exposed Undercurrents the man felt fatigued and drained. The artistic adventure had taken its toll and there was no way out. The undercurrents project twisted his mind in such a way that the only route left was to take up the stream of consciousness approach. Recorded live and with only a bare framework present at the start for each of the songs, the players had to dig deep into themselves and into the energy floating around to come up with the right parts to invest in. And man, did these guys connect. Okay let’s make this quick and get the one point of criticism about the new Vemood record out of the way, it is the fact that between songs the man directs words of wisdom at us. But mostly in his native tongue. Which we unfortunately can barely understand. It also takes some of the flow out of the otherwise excellent songs. Moving distinctly into the more classic jazz-rock landscape on most of the tracks there is not one brush stroke in the wrong color. And the dynamics of the nine players working to make every painting a masterpiece seem to have been in perfect synch at the moment of recording. What views, what vistas. They definitely leave a lingering image of inspiration in the mind…

(Written by JK)

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