Over Tage＜Transparent Purple Vinyl＞

The third studio effort from the Danish folk-jazz duo featuring Nikolaj Svaneborg (Wurlitzer, Juno) and Jonas Kardyb (drums), Over Tage is Svaneborg Kardybs most organically constructed and engaging album to date. Like its predecessor, 2019s Danish Music Award-winning Knob, the ten-song set is rife with elliptical folk melodies and ambient soundscapes grounded in steady, IDM-inflected grooves. Standout pieces like "Op," "Orbit," and the sweeping title track feel rooted in both elemental Scandinavian jazz and the ambient instrumental pop of genre-hopping contemporaries like Bremer/McCoy and Sagor & Swing. Kardybs tasteful yet commanding kit work leaves ample space for Svaneborg to explore, and his note choices are as economical as they are dulcet. The duo describes the blueprints for Over Tage as having been constructed "in the earliest of mornings over the blackest of coffee." Its an apt description, as the final product evokes crisp dawn light filtered through a row of pristine icicles. ~ James Christopher Monger