Signe Emmeluth ⨳ saxophones
Guro Kvåle ⨳ trombone
Andreas Wildhagen ⨳ drums
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten ⨳ double bass
Jonas Cambien ⨳ piano

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Maca Conu works like a grand hall of mirrors, distorting the surface of initial contact, altering deeply ingrained assumptions and conventions, continually altering appearances so that nothing is as it first appears. It is a magnificent, yet lasting, illusion.

 

Maca Conu is the dazzling new band led by Belgian-born, Oslo-residing pianist, composer and improviser Jonas Cambien, an outfit whose eponymous new release clamours like an exploding kunstkammer of curiosities, where runaway orchestrinas and impish automata cavort and gambol in gloriously frisky frissons.

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With its origins in a commission for the 2021 edition of Norway’s Motvind festival, the album also heralds the recorded debut of a starry new Scandinavian ensemble, featuring Cambien’s long-time associate, drummer Andreas Wildhagen, low-end powerhouse, double-bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Danish rising-star saxophonist Signe Emmeluth. Joining forces on Maca Conu, this mighty quartet draw upon combined experiences performing alongside notables including Bugge Wesseltoft, Mats Gustafsson, Tony Buck and Paal Nilssen-Love, while also developing fecund alliances forged in such units as Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra, Jonas Cambien Trio and Emmeluth’s Amoeba, communicating in hive-mind mode across uncharted cross-sections straddling contemporary composition and free-improvisation.