Elsa Nilsson: Dark is Light is
Bumblebee Collective

Elsa Nilsson and her band make the material on Dark is Light is so much their own, you'd naturally take the seven pieces for originals by the flutist; instead, they're arrangements of classic Swedish folk songs associated with Saint Lucia's Day. The treatments have been developed over many years by the Swedish native and her bandmates, guitarist Jeff McLaughlin, bassist Alex Minier, and drummer Cody Rahm, and it shows in these assured renderings. Pandemic-related protocols prevented them from performing the material live on the holiday's date of December 13th for the first time in nearly a decade, but the recording offers an equivalent if not greater satisfaction in allowing the listener to revisit the material whenever desired. The name Lucia, incidentally, is from the latin Lux, meaning light, and the holiday of Lucia is thus intended as a celebration of light on the darkest night of the year.

The release was Nilsson's third of 2020, with Dark is Light is preceded by the superb quartet album Hindsight in February and three months later the EP for human beings with her group SXNE. Such ramped-up activity pays clear dividends on the latest release: the band executes the material with a seeming effortlessness that happens when few schedule breaks arise to slow momentum. It has the feel of a group entering the studio immediately following a tour's end when playing's at its tightest.

Compared to the politically charged Hindsight, Dark is Light is is less aggressive—which is not to suggest there's any less vitality to the performances. Nilsson's fondness for her native country and its traditions is evident as the quartet gives voice to the songs' resonant folk melodies, something made abundantly clear when the opening track, “När Juldagsmorgon Glimmar” (“when Christmas morning sparkles”), eases the listener into the album with bright, sing-song melodies and a generally resplendent feel. McLaughlin quickly toughens up the tune with a rousing solo, his intensity bolstered by an especially boisterous Rahm and percolating Minier. Things decompress slightly as Nilsson initiates her solo before she too turns up the heat, the band paralleling the shift. One leaves the performance less mindful of the tune's folk origins and more the fluidity with which the quartet advances through the changes.

Catching the ear instantly is the uptempo “Sankta Lucia” for its alternating flute and guitar voicings of the dance-like theme, the tune apparently used as a slow and graceful processional during Lucia celebrations. In Nilsson's hands, the material inhabits a jubilant space informed equally by folk, prog, and jazz. Dance-rooted also is “Julpolska,” which Nilsson cleverly sprinkles with an Argentinean rhythm and some Messiaen-inspired harmonic ideas. With lyrics about life's transience, it surprises little that the mood in “Hej Tomtegubbar Slå I Glasen” is sombre; the slow tempo allows the quartet to present its solemn side, however, plus show its sensitive handling of a lament. Gently rendered too is “När Det Lider Mot Jul,” a popular Swedish Christmas song having to do with light returning from darkness; with Rahm wielding brushes, the performance calls forth sensitive ruminations from both flutist and guitarist.

Though “Så Mörk Är Natten” (“How Dark is the Night”) accentuates how oppressive winter darkness can be, it also alludes to spring's imminent return with all the hope that entails. One doesn't have to be a genius to identify a connection between details such as these and the terrible year we've left behind. The project is refreshing in other ways, too. Saxophone-led quartets are plentiful, flute-led ones much less so, perhaps because, in the estimation of some, the instrument isn't thought to project as forcefully. She singlehandedly lays that belief to rest, however, when her flute resonates as forcefully as McLaughlin's guitar. Certainly one of the primary pleasures the recording offers has to do with the quartet's playing. As a unit, they segue smoothly from tenderness to raucousness as the music demands, and as front-liners Nilsson and McLaughlin show themselves to be a consistently compelling combination.

January 2021