Monoswezi - The Village [Riverboat Records]

Monoswezi:
Hope Masike - vocals, mbira
Calu Tsemane - vocals, percussion
Hallvard Godal - saxophone, clarinet
Putte Johander - bass
Erik Nylander - drums, percussion

Riverboat Records / World Music Network 2013

Monoswezi is a collective that gathers together musicians from Zimbabwe and Scandinavia - quite a distance to cover on the north-south axis. Hallvard Godal stayed in 2008 in Maputo (capital of Mozambique) working as a musician and at his return Monoswezi was found and ever since is a mean to explore those inspirations. A collaboration that is based upon the value of crosscultural communication.

Fattigfolket - Park [Ozella]

Fattigfolket:

Gunnar Halle - trumpet

Hallvard Godal - sax, clarinet

Putte Johander - bass

Ole Morten Sommer - drums

Ozella Music 2011

 "Park" is already a third release from Swedish/Norwegian quartet (I admit I don't know the two previous ones - both released on danish ILK) and it's a concept album - a collection of 11 songs dedicated to/inspired by various parks that the band had a chance to visit during their tours. The green space, hidden inside the city serves as a place of creative refugee from the noise and fast tempo of modern life.

The Scandinavian jazz is commonly associated with the kind of fragile, cold ECM sound (inspired by the fjords), which is contraddicted by the explosive music played by the likes of Matts Gustafsson or Atomic band. Fattigfolket present yet another way as the 11 park-pieces (seven of them by Hallvard, three by Putte and one they share the credit for) all display a kind of melodic accessibility and warmth that don't fit neither the peacefulness of cold fjords nor the rebel explosion.