Music Outpost

Pixel, led by the remarkable 25-year-old bassist/vocalist Ellen Andrea Wang, is a powerhouse indie-jazz quartet which is possibly the most alluring band yet to explode out of Norway’s burgeoning improvised music scene. Combining indie rock energy with the improvisational flexibility of a post-bop combo, Pixel breaks down familiar musical elements and recombines them in a succession of startlingly original sound scapes. Earthy and ethereal, wistful and aggressive, sensuous and pummeling, the band refuses to settle into one mood or sonic space for long.

When she’s not working with Pixel, Wang can be heard accompanying pop singer Thea Hjelmeland or anchoring the progressive rock bands Synkoke and White Willow. She’s already contributed to nearly a dozen albums with various artists. Last year, she earned several coveted awards, including the prestigious Jazztalent Dølajaz. As a graduate of Oslo’s Norwegian Academy of Music, she gained widespread attention in Norway with the release of 2010’s Norwegian Song 3. She was subsequently pegged as a rising bass star who held her own in the company of established masters like pianist Dag Arnesen, drummer Pål Thowsen and trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.

All four Pixels are ubiquitous on the fiercely creative Scandinavian jazz scene, which has embraced the quartet as an exemplar of Norway’s populist cutting edge. Slated for a series of major festivals and showcases across the region and the UK, Pixel is poised to take the jazz world by storm.

Pixel features the same classic, piano-less, 'modern jazz' quartet lineup of sax, trumpet, bass and drums as the epochal jazz quartets led by Ornette Coleman and Gerry Mulligan. Like these antecedents, the band takes full advantage of the harmonic freedom allowed by the lack of a chordal instrument, but Pixel is more interested in painting scenes than in setting up extended solos. With sharply etched compositions, Pixel has attained preternatural cohesion after two years together, moving seamlessly from composed passages to group improvisation marked by conversational interplay. A radical democracy, no one instrument stays in the foreground for long. Pixel makes every note count, never wasting a moment or letting a tune wear out its welcome.