Bits & Pieces

2015 release. Jazzland Recordings presents, Bits & Pieces, the second album from Mopti, and this time the group are taking things to a whole new level. Bendik Baksaas, turntablist and laptop musician, demonstrated through remixes of Mopti's album Logic (2013) that a collaboration might just be a great idea. In the summer of 2014, Mopti & Bendik Baksaas became a living reality at the Molde Jazz Festival. With Baksaas fully integrated into the band, they continued to explore the limitless possibilities the new combo had to offer, gradually mapping out a whole new world of their own. Bits & Pieces is an avant-garde album where the band have begun by challenging themselves, first and foremost, in the combination of contemporary jazz and experimental hip-hop, and this challenge is passed on to the listener in equal measure, a whole world of groove, mayhem, freedom, funk, soul, jazz, blinding lights and light-swallowing shadows to explore. There are moments of fanciful whimsy here, but also moments that feel downright dangerous. It's almost an album worth putting on safety gear before listening to! Personnel: Harald Lassen - saxophone, vocals; Kristoffer Eikrem - trumpet; David Aleksander Sjolie - guitar, vocals; Christian Meaas Svendsen - bass; Andreas Wildhagen - drums; Bendik Baksaas - DJ.