Vital Weekly (NL)

From Norway hail Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik and Rune Sagevik, who call themselves Pjusk. Their debut, ‘Sart’ was reviewed in Vital Weekly 575, but the follow-up albums, ‘Sval’ and ‘Tele’ went by, not reviewed. This is their fourth album, and the title means ‘sun dust’ and it sees them using the trumpet sound of Kare Nymark Jr, which they solely use, besides a bit of guitar (by Anders Voldsund). Label boss Taylor Deupree adds a bit of his own trumpet processing, using Kyma, and the Pjusk cuts, past and collage all of these processed recordings into a ten-piece/one hour release this is. I wonder who was responsible for making the trumpet sound like wind chimes in ‘Demring’, maybe all of them? This is an album that has to offer quite a variety of approaches. From the glacial and somewhat predictable opening tones of ‘Streif’, the trumpet-as-trumpet in ‘Gløtt’, the chimes of ‘Demring’ and the somewhat crude (nice!) guitar effects on ‘Blaff’. Maybe at times there is too much reverb on that trumpet and it sounds too much as a cliché (‘Blaff’ again), but the album is saved by the amount of variety in these pieces. I like the more abstract pieces, which avoid the pure glacial drone style that Pjusk has at times, but, as said, it’s a combination of various interests (glacial drones, trumpet with reverb (ECM inspired I wondered), abstract) that makes this quite an interesting album altogether. A bit Hubro Music at times, I mused, bit jazz like, but a totally different kind of jazz. (FdW)