After two critically acclaimed albums, Winther-Storm is now releasing their
third album Flotsam. Flotsam treats the listener to a mix of both acoustic
and electric jazz, drawing on a diverse palette of musical inspiration, ranging
from cool-jazz, rock and other modern music influences. New jazz album
releases tend to be pigeonholed as conservative or progressive. This album,
however, manages to be both, combining clear melodies and harmonic
structures with abstract sound concepts and improvisations. Exploring such
diversity on one album is a challenging endeavour. Instead of creating a
fragmented listening experience and thereby losing the fine balance of
moods, the result is a unique and potent blend of expressions, which has
become the trademark of Winther-Storm. The recording has 11 tracks that
vary in length from one minute to about six minutes. The short pieces
function as important bridges and are mostly improvised, concisely changing
the sound in order to open up for the subsequent track. In film productions
improvised dialogues are often cut together to create something entirely new.
On this album, improvised material has also been rearranged and edited to
form a new expression.
As guitarist Håkon Storm puts it: “It is great to have an overall good vibe and
quality, but something in the sound has to stick out and trigger the listerner’s
curiosity.”
Håkon Storm has a distinct guitar voice and is a prolific composer. He has produced
works for both big band and smaller jazz ensembles. Håkon has toured several times
in Japan, the USA and Europe. His own recordings include solo works and
collaborative ventures with some of the best and most respected musicians in
Norway, Japan, Europe and the USA. Håkon teaches guitar, ensemble, rhythmic
training, composition, theory and improvisation classes at the Norwegian State
Academy of Music. His latest solo album Kobolt features the amazing Dutch string
quartet Zapp 4. combining rhythm, guitar and strings in a fantastic blend.
Mark Coehoorn studied drums at the Conservatory of Amsterdam from 2004 until
2008. He has performed with many of the finest jazz musicians in the Netherlands,
such as Benjamin Herman, Lars Dietrich, Joris Roelofs and Jesse van Ruller. He
teaches drums and plays with a variety of ensembles. Mark's round sound and fluid
feel has been likened to the sounds of such great jazz drummers as Jack Dejonette,
Roy Haynes and Brain Blade. Mark has been an important voice of Winther-Storm
since the first album Patchwork.
Natalio Sued, Argentine saxophonist, moved from Buenos Aires to Amsterdam in
2001. Improvisation plays a main role in his musical activities, where new and varied
encounters with international improvisers take place in both renowned and
underground venues worldwide. Sued also performs in bands encompassing a great
diversity of genres. He embraces the freedom of instant composing, evoking his
Argentinian background (Antimufa, Del Abasto) and his fascination for rock and
contemporary music. Recent collaborations include projects with the trio Native
Speaker, Tiltan and the saxophone quartet Solaris.
Thomas Winther Andersen has toured in Europe and the USA with a multitude of
musicians and bands, for example Lee Konitz, Sheila Jordan, Robert Rook, Michiel
Borstlap, John Engels and Jasper Blom. Thomas has composed many pieces for
various jazz ensembles, big bands, as well as chamber music. His compositions have
been broadcast on both Norwegian and Dutch radio, and many of them are available
on CD recordings. Together with Håkon, he also recorded two CDs Out From a
Cool Storage and Line Up with the band Line Up, featuring Jimmy Halperin on
saxophone.