Norwegian electronic jazzheads Wibutee released their 4th album Sweet Mental on their own Sonne Disk label. One of the primary bands that the all important Bugge Wesseltoft gave the world through his Jazzland records, Wibutee has been one of the most successful bands although not as popular as say Beady Belle. If Bugge’s nujazz approach broke some jazz traditions, Wibutee is pushing back some of the already established compositional nujazz traditions as well. The song “Aalo” for example has very powerful sax work, over some prog rockish organ and a 90s tv-theme sound. (This first part is definitely gonna be heard in an advertisement this year). Yet the song changes dramatically after 2 minutes, after a pastoral organ solo, then discoballs for half a minute, and then to a cacaphonic power-rock ending. The song shapeshifts all the time yet the sax binds them all together in this remarkable future jazz fusion.

Another lovely piece “Travel with you” has this unutterable harmony between electronics and accoustic instruments. Wibutee has achieved what many modern musicians strive for today, to integrate the electronics so fluidly into the music that you don’t even notice it. The same is almost effortlessly executed on the closing track “The Ball” which sees the Norwegian singer Anja Garbarek guest star.

I think Wibutee’s strongest point is that they’re making experimental music listenable to masses. Most of the contemporary electronic (or jazz) music scares mainstream listeners almost instantly so it’s nice to see they’re caring for the masses.