Scandinavia has for decades been one of the more dependable areas to hear solid improvisation. In the 1950s American jazz musicians began marking cities like Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, and Bergen in their standard touring itineraries. Audiences there have always been welcoming to new breeds of music, and it is no wonder - in a place where contemporary classical music has deep roots - that free improvisation would so quickly find a warm bed in northern Europe. Years later, countless American expatriates called these cities their home and, in turn, found soulmates in the local talent. In 2003, Scandinavia arguably has the most exciting indigenous improvisers, though many of the names almost never fall on American ears, strangely and sadly. Two such names are Martin Küchen and Raymond Strid. Strid, best known for his work alongside Sten Sandell and Mats Gustafsson in the Swedish power trio Gush, marks the perfect balance between drummer and percussionist. Incorporating both disciplines into his playing on a standard kit, Strid, like Paul Lytton, is identifiable by the many objects he places upon his skins to obtain a variety of percussive sounds, thus extending the natural range and possibilities in his instrument. Küchen, who is here following up a superb release from his other performing unit, Exploding Customer, is at once a skilled composer and a brilliant improviser. Gifted on multiple reed instruments, Küchen has a knack for controlling what Paul Dunmall refers to "light and shade" in the discipline of free improvisation and is able to work fluidly between controlled, soft timbres and pressure-heavy harmonic blowing, the foundation to those noise attacks so frequently employed by post-Coltrane saxophonists.

An impromptu duo performance in 2001 between Küchen and British bassist Tony Wren led to the formation of the Unsolicited Music Ensemble, with Strid completing the circle. Bulbs, a recording from an early 2002 Swedish tour, is their first commercial release and it is quite the show. Exploding Customer's Live at Glenn Miller Caf� (Ayler Records) showed Küchen to be a fine composer, threading catchy melodic heads with hard, groove-based improv. Those of us who enjoyed his turns on the stage for spontaneous expression now get to hear him without a net. This ensemble's game is communication and they excel without checking off any of the obvious bullets expected from that area of the music. Strid's drumming employs equal parts "little sounds" and the suspension of sound altogether. At other times he shifts to full scale assault, strengthened by Wren's attentive bowing and bird-of-prey reflexes: their performance on the record is a model of focus. The music is as organic as any one will find in a recording of such a context. Küchen weaves through the pieces using natural effects, flirting with quarter tones and what could pass for pitch shifting. None of the tracks bear the excessiveness so often found in group improv; of the seven numbers, the longest clocks in at just under twelve minutes. Even still, the music is best heard at intervals, rather than sitting with the disc in full. While the overall attitude of the tracks tends to bleed over, there are plenty of stimulating nuances. The trio shows tremendous range in the comparatively small niche they are striving to develop.