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Ploug is part of a generation of guitarists who absorbed as much from Radiohead as they did from Bill Frisell, so while there is all the openness and adventure of an improviser with his own distinctive language, it is informed by a more rugged, indie-rock sensibility, driven forward by Carpio’s subtle, ever-changing grooves.
—Cormac Larkin, Irish Times
Danish guitarist-composer Mikkel Ploug has had a long association with Songlines. The first of three recordings by the avant chamber-jazz trio Equilibrium, which he co-leads with Sissel Vera Pettersen and Joachim Badenhorst, appeared in 2009, and those were followed by two solo acoustic guitar titles, Alleviation (2017) and Day in the Sun (2022).
Hope is the latest record by his very first jazz group, formed in 2006 with Danish bassist Jeppe Skovbakke and Irish drummer Sean Carpio. Recorded in studio after a European tour, Hope captures the renewed energy and finesse of three longtime friends who continue to spark each other’s creativity. There’s subtlety here too, the same melodic lyricism and harmonic novelty heard to great effect on Alleviation and Day in the Sun. The program is completed by arrangements of Billy Strayhorn’s “The Star-Crossed Lovers” and two songs by Carl Nielsen, Denmark’s great classical composer. Mikkel calls these beautiful old tunes “my Danish standards”.
A bit of relevant backstory: throughout May 2020, during the lockdown, Ploug serenaded his Copenhagen neighbors from his apartment balcony with nightly electric guitar performances of music he’d been working on during the day. Followed by thousands of viewers around the world, these offerings soon led to the studio album Balcony Lullabies (Stunt, 2020). The group record that followed, Nocturnes (Stunt, 2022), features the trio and saxophonist
Hope is the latest record by his very first jazz group, formed in 2006 with Danish bassist Jeppe Skovbakke and Irish drummer Sean Carpio. Recorded in studio after a European tour, Hope captures the renewed energy and finesse of three longtime friends who continue to spark each other’s creativity. There’s subtlety here too, the same melodic lyricism and harmonic novelty heard to great effect on Alleviation and Day in the Sun. The program is completed by arrangements of Billy Strayhorn’s “The Star-Crossed Lovers” and two songs by Carl Nielsen, Denmark’s great classical composer. Mikkel calls these beautiful old tunes “my Danish standards”.
A bit of relevant backstory: throughout May 2020, during the lockdown, Ploug serenaded his Copenhagen neighbors from his apartment balcony with nightly electric guitar performances of music he’d been working on during the day. Followed by thousands of viewers around the world, these offerings soon led to the studio album Balcony Lullabies (Stunt, 2020). The group record that followed, Nocturnes (Stunt, 2022), features the trio and saxophonist
Mark Turner
saxophone, tenorb.1965
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