Many of you will know Bugge as one of the key members of Jazzland Records crew with the New Conception Of Jazz projects or his many collaborations, like the Laurent Garnier Live album of last year Public Outburst with Philippe Nadaud and Benjamin Rippert (actually, great version of ‘Man With The Red Face’ on that one).

IM has none of that crossover jazz/dance/club vibe. Bugge himself was interviewed last year again on the Today programme explaining how touched he was to hear Zawadi on their programme. Indeed, it is a strange interview as you would never have guessed the pure evil events she’d suffered from her quiet explanation of what had happened to her. And it’s this dignity as much as anything else that inspired Bugge to write WY and include the recording of her voice (without the translation).

‘WY’ is introduced with a typical George W soundbite on the fight against terrorism bringing home the obvious issue that Bush-types are only interested in the $ in their pockets. No doubt the Beeb will be picking up an award for their coverage of this, but the news never stops and as Bugge points out, Zawadi’s story is not an isolated one. Kenya is the current African state to get in the disaster lime light and Zimbabwe is rarely out of the news for all the wrong reasons.

That said, after our party season’s end, this album brings us some refection and calm. Mostly as solo piano and an array of keyboards, IM is close to the modern classicism of Keith Jarrett with modal and ambient influences.

Norwegian Mari Boine, who is best known for album Gula Gula on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label some years ago, helps out on ‘YOYK’ on vocals and drum. It’s one of those grower tracks and ignoring the mixture of track titles of capital and lower case lettering (Why?), the first track ‘BLACK PEARL Make Dream’ has that hypnotic feel that gets you coming back time and again.

Not the sort of album that you can easily dip into. Take your time and absorb all of it. Whether it will make a difference to the lives of the oppressed is another matter.

Reviewed: Bugge Wesseltoft — IM (Jazzland Records) Cat. No. 0602517435858
Release date: January 2008 : Artwork By Håkon Kornstad
Notes: “The voice you are hearing in WY belongs to Zawadi Mongane, a Congolese woman telling her story of kidnap by Rwanda Militia,. I heard her terrible story on BBC Today, and the interview, told with her low, calm voice had an enormous impact on me. Unfortunately her story is not unique and this is happening now”. Bugge Wesseltoft, Oslo, August 2007.
Tracklisting:
1 BLACK PEARL Make Dream (6:07)
2 WY (5:55) [featuring Interview Recording of Zawadi Mongane]
3 deIMAGER (5:24)
4 YOYK (5:03) feat. Mari Boine
5 HIT (2:24)
6 MIN by (5:53)
7 vidde (3:59)
8 FOT (4:11)
9 IM (7:27)
10 ROAD HOME (3:20)

Links:
www.buggewesseltoft.com
www.jazzlandrec.com
www.myspace.com/buggewesseltoft
www.myspace.com/boine