Selvhenter “Mesmerizer”
Going past musical genres and instead straight towards something more elemental - Selvhenter’s music creates a
strikingly direct, physical experience of sound composed of polyrhythms, acoustic and electric melodies, heavy music
and improvised beauty.
Since forming in Copenhagen in 2010, drummers Jaleh
Negari and Anja Jacobsen, saxophonist Sonja LaBianca and trombonist Maria Bertel have forged a unique approach to
making music that starts with their instrumental setup: two drummers that interlock as frequently as they go their own
way, a trombone put through a bass amplifier loud enough to rattle your chest and a saxophone put through a range of
effects so that it often sounds unrecognisable. Selvhenter work within their own idiom, drawing from the individual
players’ personalities and interests to make a highly collective music, where all four musicians are absorbed into a total
sound where an improvised free jazz approach collides with experimental electronic music and avant-garde
noise/post-punk sonorities.
Their new LP Mesmerizer - which marks their first physical album release in nearly a decade and their debut on the
French label Hands in the Dark - carries forward this process of exploration, deploying original and complex patterns of
rhythm through various percussive instruments and finely textured horns and synths. The attention to sonic details is
also almost pushed to an extreme on this new offering, making the open auditory adventure suggested by the title of
the album all the more captivating. These creative developments have brilliantly kept Selvhenter’s music alive to new
uncharted moods and possibilities, while at the same time strengthening their core elements: a propulsive, dense and
often ecstatic music.
Credits
Music by Selvhenter:
Sonja LaBianca (saxophon)e
Maria Bertel (trombone, synthesizer) Jaleh Negari (drums, percussion)
Anja Jacobsen (drums, percussion, keyboard)
Recorded at The Village Recording
Mix by Anders Bach
Master by Stephan Mathieu
Lacquer cut by Andreas LUPO Lubich
Artwork by Brenna Murphy
With support from Danish Arts Foundation, JazzDanmark and Koda’s cultural funds
Hands In The Dark / eget værelse 2023
bandcamp (DK)
bandcamp (outside DK)
