Absolutely beautiful Scandi-chamber jazz from another great Norwegian outfit. … This is ambient jazz full of small movements and gentle textural changes, but it’s surprisingly robust, with Wallumrød’s piano pleasingly edgy and drummer Ped Oddvar Johansen clattering away to good effect. If you buy one Norwegian jazz album this year, this is the one.
Kerstan Mackness, Time Out London
Here be composition and improv, light and twilight, slow and slower tempos, Scandinavian folk, pre-Baroque harmony, post-Monk jazz, piano, fiddles, drums and Arve Hendriksen’s trumpet, which mostly sounds like a flute. The music proceeds in tiny cadential steps, short-phrased like stopped thought. And while it may not sing, it thinks and feels and sighs.
Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday
When you hear Okland’s beautiful keening Hardanger Fiddle on the folkish ‘Sketch’ or the flute-like tones that Henriksen draws from his trumpet on the pre-Baroque sounding ‘Eliasong’, it’s evident that this is much more than the sum of a series of diverse and diverting influences. At times beautifully eerie as on ‘Wedding Postponed’ and ‘Horseshoe Waltz’, where soft string and trumpet sounds merge with Johansen’s bizarre percussive noises and Wallumrød’s dissonant chords, this is a record that dare to be different. As close to perfection as you’re likely to hear.
Duncan Heining, Jazzwise
As with Seim’s larger band, the movement of the music is slow and the exploration of small textural and timbral changes is the point. But Wallumrød also likes Keith Jarrett and early Paul Bley, so his angle on ambient sounds has more swing and edge than might be expected. … The soft, breathy hiss of Henriksen’s trumpet against the repeating, perpetual-motion piano figures and the delicate swoops of the violin gradually build a sensitivity that makes the session come to sound like a torrent of restless activity. … Very quiet, but very strong.
John Fordham, The Guardian
A quiet, tranquil yet powerful album from a genuine original with a highly individual musical outlook. Wallumrød deserves a place alongside the late lamented Edward Veasala and the aforementioned Seim in the front rank of recent jazz-inspired innovators.
Chris Parker, Jazzreview
Mit A Year From Easter legt er seinen dritten und höchst gelungenen Versuch vor, neuen Klangvariationen auf die Spur zu kommen. Von großer Luzidität und Leichtigkeit durchdrungen, führt Wallumrød durch ein großes Kaleidoskop skandinavischer Eindrücke und spontaner Ideen. ... Insgesamt empfiehlt sich Wallumrød mit A Year From Easter als ein Konzeptionalist von großer Poesie, der einen besonderen Beitrag zur aktuellen Musik aus seiner deutlich skandinavisch geprägten Sicht leistet.
Hans-Jürgen von Osterhausen, Jazzpodium
Zu drei Improvisatoren, die ansonsten etwa mit der Experimental-Vokalistin Sidsel Endresen oder der Avantgarde-Elektronikband Supersilent arbeiten, gesellt sich ein Folkgeiger, der zugleich auf Alte Musik spezialisiert ist. Er legt flirrende Klänge über Wallumrøds asketische Akkorde, Trompeter Henriksen steuert Einflüsse aus anderen Kulturen bei, der Drummer ist ein Meister “singender” Becken. Musik von höchst eigenwilliger Faszination. Und ohne Vergleich.
Berthold Klostermann, Stereo
