And, in a bitter-sweet way, I’m thankful it’s got to be the last ever (unless it really isn’t, now wouldn’t that be embarrassing) precisely because it’s so good. In any case, for me, Leucocyte was like an uncovered treasure, an almost-forgotten wish come true, so I admit I might be biased, but I do believe it’s the best album E.S.T. I even started a running regimen while listening to it, even though I immediately realized it has nothing to do with running and it’s much more likely to impede success than encourage it. I devoured it, right then and there, and it didn’t leave my playlist, on repeat, for days and days.
and wishing they had managed to release just one more record, when a dear friend of mine made me a CD with some jazzy suggestions and had included the album Leucocyte on it. Inexcusable ignorance indeed, as I had completely missed Leucocyte.Īnd so I went on for about three years, often missing E.S.T. And then, I heard Esbjörn Svensson died, so I thought, amongst other things, “what a shame that Tuesday Wonderland would be their last album…”.
I didn’t like that album, it seemed to lack some of the drama of their previous releases. After hearing “Tuesday Wonderland” I got a little put off. “Viaticum”, “Seven Days of Falling”, these were albums which stuck with me and are still part of my regular playlist. really hit the mark for me back then, with their smooth and convoluted songs, often exploding into determined, hard-edged rhythms more akin to rock than what I’d heard of jazz up until that point. Chick Corea would scare me off most of the times, as would John Coltrane, not to mention Pat Metheny. This recording offers more questions than it does answers initially, but gives up the latter as a sad but revelatory pay-off when one hears just what is accomplished here.I remember when I first discovered E.S.T., I was trying to familiarize myself a bit more with jazz and was having trouble finding an avenue to really start exploring the genre. Leucocyte may well be the final album by E.S.T., but it's an amazing way to go out. The spacious, textural, electronic atmospheres of "Still" point the direction to another, unnameable kind of music altogether while being firmly rooted in jazz. The arco feedback work also commences "Jazz," but then is transformed into a swinging hard bop tune. The mysterious final movement brings a kind of equilibrium from the anger but enshrouds the entire thing in foggy mystery.
It breaks sonic ground while remaining lyric and fluid throughout, even in the chaotic third movement. This is a dark, rumbling, ambiguous, aggressive new direction. The latter, four-part title suite is pure heavy metal jazz, thanks to the hard arco work by Berglund and the fluid drumming of Öström - check the opening segment as feedback and disembodied radio voices create the entire middle as Svensson enters in the lower register of his piano. Drums offer fresh force, pushing that bassline into wider dynamic arcs until the whole thing explodes in a kind of postmodern, vanguard jazz lyricism created by taut arpeggios and beats that alternately echo hard bop breaks and Mitch Mitchell on Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun." It becomes a swirling cascade of post-bop, new millennium jazz, as a symbiotic relationship is established between trio members, carrying it into its second part. That bassline drives the track for 17 minutes as electronic sounds begin to establish themselves in between phrases, adorned by ghostly voices in the margins of Svensson's piano lines, which become increasingly more decorative but ever more mysterious. Part one, "Earth,'" begins with Berglund's upright bass, pulsing and driving home a syncopated rhythm, illustrated by skeletal illustrative phrases from Svennsson and then the muted percussion of Öström. The brief, elliptical "Decade," a piano solo, kicks off the set, but is followed little more than a minute later by the two-part "Premonition" suite. All three messed about with electronics, on-stage and in the studio. But bassist Dan Berglund's deep wooded tone and stellar arco work is almost a force of nature, and drummer Magnus Öström's alternately hard swinging and colorful flourishes weave together both thunder and rain. His technique is flawless whether he is executing the deft and technical dexterity of someone like Keith Jarrett or the delicate lyricism of Kenny Drew. True, Svensson is a pianist's pianist as both a composer and improviser. The album is dominated by two very lengthy modal suites, near the beginning and end, that offer wildly different views of how they worked as a trio.
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