The third studio effort from the Danish folk-jazz duo featuring
Nikolaj Svaneborg (Wurlitzer, Juno) and
Jonas Kardyb (drums),
Over Tage is
Svaneborg Kardyb's most organically constructed and engaging album to date. Like its predecessor, 2019's Danish Music Award-winning
Knob, the ten-song set is rife with elliptical folk melodies and ambient soundscapes grounded in steady, IDM-inflected grooves. Standout pieces like "Op," "Orbit," and the sweeping title track feel rooted in both elemental Scandinavian jazz and the ambient instrumental pop of genre-hopping contemporaries like
Bremer/McCoy and
Sagor & Swing.
Kardyb's tasteful yet commanding kit work leaves ample space for
Svaneborg to explore, and his note choices are as economical as they are dulcet. The duo describes the blueprints for
Over Tage as having been constructed "in the earliest of mornings over the blackest of coffee." It's an apt description, as the final product evokes crisp dawn light filtered through a row of pristine icicles. ~ James Christopher Monger
