no earplugs

Marthe Lea maneuvers through the mysteries of music in an ingenious way. She has showed this in the recent years in such different contexts as Bugge Wessltoft’s New Conception of Jazz, in a trio with Ayumi Tanaka and Thomas Strønen (released on ECM) and with musicians such as Axel Dörner and Alasdair Roberts. She balances her sincere and powerful expression, which contains both folk songs and howling, in a liberating way.

“Herlighetens Vei” is Marthe Lea Band’s follow-up to the slightly classic debut album, “Asura” from 2021. It carries on the same life-affirming energy and explores new nooks and crannies in the same wonderful
universe as the first. Like its predecessor, the second album offers a lot of variety and the free approach to the compositions stands strong. Some of the tracks make it impossible to keep your dancing feet still, while others give room for introspection and reflection.

The French jazz magazine Citizen Jazz was overwhelmed with enthusiasm for the first record, and particularly boasted of Marthe Lea’s “ability to hold disparate idioms together, to mix a whole bunch of influences (whether musical or not, moreover) in the crucible of her own personality, of her own history, to bring out a great personal and extraordinary whole, a fresh and singular music which belongs only to
herself.”