They are the easiest of the Runes to be calledjazz or even new-age, but the words will hardly sound dirty to anyoneever seduced by Vangelis or something from the ECM label (for whichlabel owner Rune K. is longtime employee). While 2003's Veggie arranged the group's progressively more electronic sound within a lattice of kinetic, percussion-driven outbursts, Last Suppersounds like less of a retreat into more textural play than a documentof the members' focused effort towards integration. Arve Henriksen'strumpet attempts nothing that his last solo record Chiaroscurodidn't test first. His lush, breathy style, however, has never soundedmore comfortable than among Thomas Str?nen's much looser, clatter-heavydrumming and the subtle hums, whirs, and pure tones making up theunobtrusive electronic quotient. The quartet is horn-led without thesax and trumpet becoming the fulcrum for the movement of each track,their looping overlays and uniformities creating instead the driftingbackdrop from which all of Last Supper's small surprises burstlike budding desert flowers. Str?nen's percussion bears the influenceof the gamelan sound as well as the sparse, resonant bleats that wouldcharacterize Asian musical drama. Henriksen's playing, on the otherhand, sounds less Eastern than usual, opting to connect distinct soundevents rather than punctuate their contrastive parts. His playing, andthe interconnected of the album's tracks, their seductive whole,reminds me most of In a Silent Way, a recording that for me hasalways represented a perfect open-endedness of mood. It is music thatthrough familiar means and a relatively even keel reaches a magicalpoint of atmospheric flux and regeneration. Those attracted by?Daddycation,? the song included on last year's defining Runecompilation Money Will Ruin Everything, will be pleased to find it repeated here among tracks which mirror its vague and triumphant sense of melancholy. Last Supperwill also be perfect for those made curious by Henriksen's playing withSupersilent but yet too timid to try one of his solo records. Read More
