IN THE COUNTRY

Morten Qvenild (piano) Roger Arntzen (double bass), Pål Hausken (drums)

Sunset Sunrise


i. I sit at the computer, and the days come back. For some reason I have all my computers standing on the desk, and I bring up the days that have been, the pictures from the photo-booths. I see the faces, the smiles, the grimaces, see how my children have grown, see that I have grown older. At the same time I download the new In The Country album. I have received eight files, they have fallen into the computer as a body falls into the sea, as an eye opens after being under water. I sink backwards, down into the past, while I begin to listen.

ii. I open the music, open the days. I don't know why I'm so pleased to hear those melodies, why they hurt so much, why they feel so right. They are concentrated, but also open. They are elaborate, but also deeply moving. Perhaps it's the rust scattering over the keys, perhaps it's the sun setting somewhere in the bass. Equally it's the sky unexpectedly popping up above neon and quarrels, above faces and rain. The music makes me want to get into the car, go out to the ocean, see the plum tree in blossom, stare at the cranes down in the harbour, lean against the city's shoulder.

iii. I stare at the pictures, I listen to the music. The sunshine is like it never was, in emails, in the photo-booth, in the room, the sun makes its usual passage, sets. Nothing is finite, however. We love, we travel alone, we talk, we lack words. It is this love that flares up so uncomplicatedly, my children, my wife, the songs, all this that grows inwards, all this that pierces me. The piano's springtime silver, the drummer who sets the foliage free, the bassist's December song. I am here, I think that love is the real work, love is what opens us. Love and music. Love and sounds.

iv. It's late, I study my fingers as they run over the keyboard, I notice how changed they have become. I finish, the music carries on.

-Frode Grytten, 2012



The Norwegian piano trio In The Country celebrates ten years in 2013, after having played nearly 160 concerts in over 20 countries and released almost half a dozen albums and videos, all to great critical acclaim by the worldwide press. In The Country has been awarded the "Best Norwegian Young Jazz Artists" in the mid 00´s and they were awarded the "Independent Music Awards 2012" for their latest full length art concert film. Now with their fifth album it´s exciting to announce the walkover to the grand German record label ACT. The album was recorded in the legendary Sunset Sound studio in Los Angeles, during the trio´s summer tour in the USA in 2012, by the hands of the Grammy awarded Ryan Freeland. All compositions are made by multi-keyboardist Morten Qvenild, and put together with bass player Roger Arntzen and drummer Pål Hausken. Stylistic orthodoxy be damned", said Downbeat about their latest studio album, and this next album should be no exception.

As Listen to Norway puts it: "There is something serene about the way In The Country's music motions through the record's pieces; like the air from room to room. And these rooms are indeed translucent, or open to one another: In The Country's focus is on incorporating and expressing disparate influences and expressions. -More important than technical virtuosity or spellbinding musical features is the effortless, tranquil sweeps that melts the pieces and refine the music into glass."

-Listen To Norway, 2011