# CD review: Rymden feat. John Scofield – Valleys & Mountains – 2023: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/10/12/cd-review-rymden-feat-john-scofield-valleys-mountains-2023-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2023-10-12T00:04:51+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**After their previous excursions into the outer cosmos – the highly acclaimed studio
albums “Reflections and Odysseys”, “Space Sailors” and the powerful live album “
RYMDEN+KORK” – RYMDEN have returned to Earth with their new album, “Valleys and 
Mountains”. **

However, as one might expect from the trio of Bugge Wesseltoft, Magnus Öström and
Dan Berglund, the music is not strictly earthbound – the inner cosmos, dreams and
visions offer new spaces to explore, alongside bucolic rambles and treks. The instrumentation
and techniques are once again diversified, the styles multiplied; yet all remains
indisputably the music of RYMDEN.

There is a dual sense of nostalgia and hope for the future, a feeling of rediscovery
replacing loss. There is an awareness of the natural world and our place within 
it, the part it plays in our lives, and how our lives are simply part of something
greater than ourselves.

The homages to the natural world all share a childlike quality, a sense of joyful
exuberance and freedom, unshackled from our materialistic digital world and its 
endless bombardment of unnecessary (dis/mis)-information. “The Hike” (by Wesseltoft)
captures the many moods that excursions into natural landscapes create – the moments
of revelation and wonder, exhaustion and replenishment – and features John Scofield
on guitar, purposefully meandering wherever the path may lead. “A Walk in The Woods”
and “The Mountain” (both by Öström) have a sprightly lightness that echoes Vince
Guaraldi. The music does not seek to emulate nature’s grandeur, but an gives an 
unequivocal yet humble expression of admiration for it. “Ro” (by Wesseltoft) is 
a meditative ballad, gently shuffling, sparingly decorated, filled with the tranquility
of its title.

The expeditions to the interior world offer a much more sedate set of compositions,
largely – and appropriately – more abstract. “Song From The Valley” (a shared composition
by the trio) creates a new musical topography of atmospheric and textural elements,
abstract, yet familiar, meditative, dramatic, peaceful. “Milam Bardo” (another trio
composition) enters a melodic dreamscape, progressing on a steady staccato bowed
bassline. “Himmel” (by Berglund) is a pensive, slightly melancholy piece, led by
Berglund’s bowed bass, where each of the trio apply the lightest of touches to their
playing before ascending steadily to a driving yet atmospheric denouement that gently
deconstructs towards silence.

1. The Hike (7:41)
 2. A Walk in the Woods (5:38) 3. Milam Bardo (2:56) 4. RO (5:
24) 5. The Mountain (7:57) 6. Song from the Valley (7:47) 7. Himmel (6:35)

**Bugge Wesseltoft, piano**
 **Magnus Öström, drums** **Dan Berglund, bass** **John
Scofield, guitar**

![](https://i0.wp.com/f4.bcbits.com/img/a1114817789_16.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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