I wrote more than I intended on This Heel and Minor Majority, but I'll definitely be keeping it short on Trio Ramberget, given I'd get lost even if I started to try and describe the music in too much detail.
They're an ambient / free improvisation trip from Gothenberg, consisting of founder Gustav Davidsson on trombone, Johanna Elholm on double bass and Pelle Westlin on the bass clarinet. Originally forming together back in 2016 they now have a series of releases behind them, in particular getting praise for their album “Musik att somna till” (Music for falling asleep) - which reminds me I guess of the Max Richter project of a similar name.
Anyway it was after that album that their next project was conceived, and this appears to be a triple volume release, all put out in about 12 months - given they’re a ‘free improvisation‘ trio I assume they don’t spend months writing their tracks, after all.
Writing about the album the trio say: “We are interested in making music that can give the listener their own sense of imagery, to make their own movie to our soundtrack so, with 24 Ways, we want to take this concept further: to create a space where you just don’t fall asleep, but where you can totally lose yourself in, music to accompany you during the 24 hours of the day”.
Of course for some this style of music might be an acquired taste at best, for me it’s perfect for certain situations: - to listen to whilst working, maybe to switch off from the world on a cold, dark evening. It’s an impressive album certainly, the ambient preludes set the tone, whilst the progression of tracks based on the different keys make for interesting comparison, switching as they do between Major and Minor.
I’d probably be overthinking it if I claimed there were highlights, but I like the dark mystique of ‘E Minor’, whilst there are some gorgeous moments of musical interplay between the instruments in ‘G Major’, particularly at the end. And in 'E Major' they even have a 'hit' of sorts, given it's reached over 26,000 streams on Spotify already.
I’ll be heading back to Indie and Post Punk albums of course by Monday, but there will always be room to include incredibly talented musicians such as Trio Ramberget on these pages.