Hedvig Mollestad announces new album Tempest Revisited

(Image credit: Julia Naglestad)

Norwegian jazz prog guitarist Hedvig Mollestad has announced that she will release a brand new solo abum, Tempest Revisited, through Rune Grammofon Records on November 19.

Tempest Revisited will be Mollestad's third release within an 18 month period, acting as a follow-up to her celebrated 2020 debut solo release Ekhidna, for which she won a Spellemannpris (Norwegian Grammy). She also released Ding Dong. You're Dead. with the Hedvig Mollestad Trio earlier this year.

“Tempest Revisited draws lines back to 1998 and the very beginning of Rune Grammofon," her label states. "This was the year they released Electric, the collected electronic works of Arne Nordheim, one of Norway's greatest composers. It was also the year when parts of The Tempest, possibly his most cherished and well-known work, was chosen to be performed at the opening of Parken, the new cultural house in Ålesund, birthplace of Hedvig Mollestad."

Tempest Revisited has been directly inspired Nordheim's work, as well as some inclement Norwegian weather, and was adapted from the initial performance in 2018 and produced by Hedvig in the studio the following year.

"One could say it's a big paradox that over all this might be Hedvig´s most lyrical and less aggressive collection of music," Rune Grammafon add. "On the other hand it's quite a dynamic record, lots of light and shade and enough sonic parts at work to evoke the elements, the mighty Gran Cassa drum only one of them."

Tempest Revisited also featurws Marte Eberson from the Ekhidna band, Ivar Loe Bjørnstad from her trio and Trond Frønes (Red Kite) on bass as well as Martin Myhre Olsen, Karl Nyberg and Peter Erik Vergeni on sax.

The Hedvig Mollestad Trio will appear at London's Cafe Oto on November 18 as part of the London Jazz Festival.

Hedvig Mollestad: Tempest Revisited
1. Sun On A Dark Sky
2. Winds Approaching
3. Kittywakes In Gusts
4. 418 (Stairs In Storms)
5. High Hair

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.