Yndling

Monkey Plot is a trio consisting of Christian Winther (guitar), Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard (bass), and Jan Martin Gismervik (drums). From 2009 to 2019, they released four critically acclaimed records, toured extensively across much of the world, and were described as contributing to revitalizing Norwegian improvised music.

“Yndling” is Monkey Plot’s most varied album to date. There are several of the warm, dreamlike spaces that only they seem able to create, but the trio also reveals its rawest and most rock-oriented sides. Over propulsive rhythms and fuzzy bass ostinatos, Winther leads an intense and rewarding dialogue between punk and minimalism. The incendiary guitar playing on “Heaps Of Slag”, meanwhile, occupies a crossroads somewhere between “White Light/White Heat”-era Lou Reed and “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”-era Neil Young.

There are indeed echoes of guitar music history throughout “Yndling”, but the guitar never functions as a traditional leading instrument. It has always been the remarkable interplay that primarily defines Monkey Plot: the way the three voices shift seamlessly between different roles, simultaneously merging with and challenging one another.

FFO: Gastr del Sol, Tortoise, Velvet Underground