Shinken Shobu - 2025 - Sou Makuri

(57:57; Kokoro No Ko)

Track list:
1. 21:an 7:50
2. Swag 5:48
3. Plutten 5:21
4. Svåra 8:09
5. Frock 4:00
6. Tretaktaren 7:15
7. Sockiplast 3:59
8. Karioka 6:27
9. Leva Om Sitt Liv 9:08

Line-up:
Stina Hellberg Agback - harp
Eva Lindal - violin
Alberto Pinton - woodwinds
Filip Augustsson - double bass
Jon Fält - drums


Swedish band Shinken Shobu is an ensemble revolving around the creative output of composer and musician Stina Hellberg Agback, and this band unit marks her first appearance as a band leader if I have understood the press release correctly. The band released their debut album "Sou Makari" now in the spring of 2025 through the label Kokoro No Ko.

While this instrumental production is one that is marketed towards a more jazz interested audience, and an album where the ideals and aesthetics of the jazz tradition are rather prominent too, this isn't an album that most people would describe as a typical specimen of its kind. This is very much a low key affair too, and while we do get some dramatic and chaotic surges here and there it is the more subtle and careful manner in which expressive tendencies are explored that defines this album as a whole.

The double bass delivered by Filip Augustsson has a vital role in adding a more distinct jazz sound and feel to the landscapes explored here, with the sound of the double bass itself and the motifs explored by the instrument being a steady reminder for the listener that this is music that resides with the jazz tradition. With the structure of the compositions and the expressive instrument details being obvious markers of the same.

But the additional instrumentalists bring other flavours to the table here. The violin of Eva Lindal supplies us with a steady stream of folk music elements, with both Scandinavian and world music tendencies, whereas the woodwinds of Alberto Pinton adds more of a classical music and chamber music feel to the landscapes explored. Agback's harp and to some extent also the patterns of drummer Jon Fält are used to good effect to emphasize certain world music aspects of this creation, with the former also having a role to play in terms of emphasizing some classical music associations while the latter will have a stronger tendency to add a little bit of occasional emphasis to the jazz associations that are created throughout.

With the band name, album name and label name all pointing towards a Japanese inspiration being in play here, I suspect that those who know their way around a bit of Japanese folk music, classical music and jazz will find quite a few intriguing details to discover on this production. From my point of view this is more the kind of album I'd recommend to an audience that enjoys and appreciates a free and expressive but low key amalgam of classical music, folk music and jazz. And then in particular for those who tend to be most intrigued when such a combination is explored with more of an influx from the jazz music tradition in terms of expressive attitudes for the compositions as well as for the individual instrument movements.

Olav M. Björnsen, June 2025

Links:
https://www.stinahellbergagback.com/