Mats/Morgan Band — Heat Beats Live

After Live and On Air With Guests the Mats/Morgan Band returns with yet another live album. It suits them fine, as their music is typically the kind to catch the excitement of the moment.

Not to mention the fact that the skills of all involved are such that you don't expect them to need a lot of takes to records their parts properly. So here we go with a selection of various line-ups around the core of Mats Öberg (keyboards) and Morgan Ågren (drums). There's a couple of musical approaches. For one their love for hallucinatory pattern repetition. Mats Jingle and Watch Me Pleasure for instance, are typically those quite minimal melodic themes that just keep going while the strangest things happen around it. This is the trance inducing part of Mats/Morgan's sound. There's a more far out stuff though, like a more severe freakout in the form of Tvingle, which has a strong seventies feel to it. Even more back in time is the traditional approach of drums, piano and bass. This traditional jazz trio may be a hint to the direction they will now take as the current Mats/Morgan Band consists of exactly those instruments (with Gustav Hielm on bass, rather than Tommy Tordsson who does it on the recordings on Heat Beats Live).

The cd comes with a bonus (or is it the other way around?): the eagerly awaited dvd Tourbook 1991-2007. The first time I watched it I was under the impression it was almost two hours of drumsolo's. OK, the dvd is credited to Morgan Ågren rather than Mats/Morgan Band, but still. That's a lot of drumsolo's. The second time I watched it, with this first impression in mind, made me realise this was a bit of an exaggeration. Although the solo's are the mainfocus there's more to it. We get to see short tour- and studio-outtakes and a big selection of various projects in which Morgan has participated over the years. The Captain Beefheart tribute, the infamous Sol Niger Within medley with Fredrik Thordendal (Meshuggah), BOX (with Raoul Björkenheim, Ståle Storløkken and Trevor Dunn), Simon Steensland Kamikaze, his brother Jimmy Ågren, Flesh Quartet and of course plenty of the Mats/Morgan Band themselves, as a duo, a trio and a quintet. Lots of these groups deserve more coverage! It's all so short! But OK, as a Morgan Ågren dvd it's very enjoyable, even if you're not a drummer. If you have a profound hatred for drumsolo's you might want to skip it, but I doubt anyone can combine such hatred with a love for the Mats/Morgan Band and even if you do you can just consider the dvd a bonus to the cd.

The music of Mats Öberg, Morgan Ågren and all their friends in various constellations is firmly rooted in seventies jazzrock but is far from retro. There's a lot of madness found on these silver discs along with even more fun, sheer FUN. These guys love to play and love to play with friends, and to catch this positive energy a live album just is ideal and successful.