Martin Küchen – alto saxophone
Eirik Hegdal – baritone and sopranino saxophone
Magnus Broo – trumpet
Mats Äleklint – trombone
Johan Berthling – bass
Alexander Zethson – piano
Mattias Ståhl – vibraphone
Konrad Agnas – drums

The Swedish band Angles 8 brings together the great heroes of contemporary improvised music, led by alto saxophonist Martin Küchen. The ensemble gradually grew in numbers – in 2007 they were Angles 6, a year later Angles 7, then 8 and 9. The format remains flexible, depending on the ambitions of the promoters and the availability of musicians. They performed as a sextet at the Ring Ring 2010, and Küchen led the band All Included at the Belgrade Jazz Festival six years later. But regardless of the size of the band, the concerts are always fascinating, touching and powerful – “An emotional roller coaster, a punch in the stomach”, as the renowned free jazz critic Guy Peters described one performance.

Their music is powerful, cohesive and straightforward, performed by sophisticated players of impressive flexibility – ideas spring and rise to the maximum in a split second. Everything is there: pathos, playfulness, energy and a certain kind of bliss, intense and emotional, always affecting the audience. Küchen gets ideas for his music from a variety of inspirations: it can be a memory of an instrument he played as a child, Balkan brass bands, Swedish folklore, the modern jazz of Chris McGregor, Carla Blay, Charles Mingus or Lars Gullin, or West African dancers turning the world upside down! Each composition is a small world in itself, blending perfectly with its magical polygon.

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