Nostalgia Machine
-The album-
August 2021 saw the Reykjavik born and bred guitarist Mikael Máni return with his second studio album Nostalgia Machine, on famed Icelandic label Smekkleysa (aka Bad Taste). 26 year old Mikael is one of the most exciting new artists on the Icelandic jazz scene and for the past 15 months he has received artist salary, during which time he composed and arranged the music for his new release. His collaborators on Nostalgia Machine and band members are all up and coming Icelandic musicians that have very diverse musical backgrounds covering not only jazz, but classical, pop, rock and experimental music.
-The music-
Although loosely categorised as jazz, Mikael likes to describe the music on Nostalgia Machine as ‘Jarm’ – a subtle blend of jazz, rock and impressionism. He aims to balance his work so that it is both accessible and demanding, in the hope that listeners are able to be stimulated both intellectually and emotionally. Mikael’s meticulous style has been described by All about jazz as kindred to Jim Hall's in tone and inflection, with traces of Lage Lund and other contemporaries who have chosen more spacious and minimalist approaches to their style of play. His new album is produced by Matt Pierson, one of the most successful producers in contemporary jazz having worked with Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny, Joshua Redman and many more.
-The band-
@Andrea
The band is a combination of 5 people that took vastly different routes in music but have in common prioritising music above all else. When Mikael was putting people together for his band he picked everybody carefully for both musical and personal reasons. He wanted the people he played with to reflect his love for many different music styles and types of people.
Lilja (piano) f.ex comes from a classical background and is now doing her PhD in cross disciplinary arts in City, University of London. All of her parts are written out which make the balance that Mikael wants to have between improvisation and through composed music. Ingibjörg (bass) comes from a pop background but in the past 6 years she has been playing melodic improvisation built on simple motives. Sölvi (alto sax) grew up with Mikael and they go into jazz at the same time when they were in a band together. Before that Sölvi came from a classical background but Mikael from a rock background. Magnús (drums) has played with so many different bands in almost every genre. The music reflects all of those people and the compositions reflect times in Mikael’s life when he was listening to rock, pop, singer-songwriter music and impressionistic music but the music is played in a jazz style.