Artist: E.S.T.

Date of Release: 18/09/2006

Catalogue no: ACT90112

Label: ACT

Price: £12.99

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Track Listing

Reviews

22/09/2006 John Fordham, The Guardian

Esbjorn Svensson's EST made the pop album charts in several countries for last year's Viaticum, and this year they even made the front cover of America's famous Downbeat jazz magazine - a location about as inaccessible as the moon for most non-Americans. Every time the decade-old EST mix (liltingly melodic, somewhat Pat Metheny-like themes, classical music, rock vamps and electronics, fluent jazz soloing in often unjazzy contexts) gets poured into another album, everybody waits to see if a fresh jazz approach has finally hardened into a formula.
Tuesday Wonderland certainly echoes plenty of Viaticum's hooks, time changes and blend of jazz-ballad musings and uptempo sprints, though Svensson's own piano style - he's a confirmed Brad Mehldau admirer - seems now to be featuring more of Mehldau's trademark contrapuntal improvising. The opening is classical/romantic solo piano, but a growling bassline and a funk beat soon envelop it. The title track is a repeating three-note low piano figure with a skipping melody echoed by the double bass, expanded by Svensson's treble and bass lines veering together and apart. Bassist Dan Berglund does his electric guitar impression on the complex, multi-thematic Brewery of Beggars, and Where We Used to Live is a delicious conventional jazz piano ballad. A racing drum pulse, cymbal shimmers, whirling ostinato figures and a fine Svensson solo make Goldwrap the standout track. Svensson fans and new converts will want Tuesday Wonderland. Waverers might want to stick with Viaticum: this is a typically classy set, but an EST leap forward it isn't.