Golden Years Pixel

• 1 Rainforest 04:39
• 2 People Pleaser 02:29
• 3 Nothing Beats Reality 05:01
• 4 Our Beauty 04:20
• 5 Arp 01:56
• 6 Dani Anana 04:11
• 7 Move On 04:53
• 8 I Have the Right To Go to Syden 02:54
• 9 Slinky 04:51
• 10 Space Is Going to the Moon 04:42
• 11 Airborne 01:17
• Total Runtime 41:13

Info for Golden Years

The award-winning Norwegian jazz quartet Pixel is in the vanguard of a scene brimming with exceptional young musicians, charting an exhilarating, improvisation-steeped jazz path infused with the cathartic energy of indie rock. Pixel’s third album Golden Years captures the next step in the band’s rapid evolution.

Pixel consists of double bassist and vocalist Ellen Andrea Wang, drummer Jon Audun Baar, trumpeter Jonas Kilmork Vemøy, and saxophonist Harald Lassen (with everyone contributing vocals).

Pixel tends toward translucent textures, tight orchestration and pop-inflected songcraft. While the sound is essentially acoustic, Vemøy and Lassen increasingly employ subtle effects that provide deeper textural depth to the already charged mélange of bright harmonies and protean rhythmic thrust.

Golden Years is the result of Pixel’s bustling 2014, a year in which the quartet played nearly 100 gigs (while also each pursuing projects of their own). When they started the recording process at the end of the year, everyone brought new songs to the table, tunes documented over five intensive days in the studio. Together these extraordinary musicians created an expansive album and sound unlike any other band on the scene. Still growing and discovering what they’re capable of, the musicians of Pixel are in their prime, and the group’s third album makes a compelling case that these are the best of times on the Norwegian scene.

"...a quirky, catchy blend of pop hooks and jazz-centric soloing...it's rare for a group so young to emerge with such a fully formed and distinctive concept, but Pixel seems to have accomplished just that." – AllAboutJazz

The first thirty seconds of this album was enough to tell me that I would probably like Norwegian band Pixel. I did...this band has something new to say musically and produces tunes that are toe-tappingly, wantonly catchy." – London Jazz News

"...unique and compelling." – Expose

"A good, young band shows growth with each release; a great one shows growth even if they don’t need to. Pixel had from the get-go developed their own, appealing engaging personality they’ve could have churned out forever. Golden Years retains that spirit while reaching out a little beyond it." (S. Victor Aaron, somethingelsereviews.com)

Jon Audun Baar, drums, percussion, vocals
Jonas Kilmork Vemøy, trumpet, vocals
Harald Lassen, saxophone, vocals, bongo
Ellen Andrea Wang, double bass, vocals

Pixel
The award-winning Norwegian jazz quartet Pixel is in the vanguard of a scene brimming with exceptional young musicians, charting an exhilarating, improvisation-steeped jazz path infused with the cathartic energy of indie rock. Pixel’s third album Golden Years captures the next step in the band’s rapid evolution.

Led by the dynamic double bassist, vocalist, and songwriter Ellen Andrea Wang, Pixel features drummer Jon Audun Baar, trumpeter Jonas Kilmork Vemøy, and saxophonist Harald Lassen (with everyone contributing vocals). While the band’s instrumentation brings to mind Ornette Coleman’s seminal free jazz quartet of the late 1950s, Pixel tends more toward translucent textures, tight orchestration and pop-inflected songcraft than harmelodic hurly burly. While the sound is essentially acoustic, Vemøy and Lassen increasingly employ subtle effects that provide deeper textural depth to the already charged mélange of bright harmonies and protean rhythmic thrust.

Golden Years is the result of Pixel’s bustling 2014, a year in which the quartet played nearly 100 gigs (while also each pursuing projects of their own). When they started the recording process at the end of the year, everyone brought new songs to the table, tunes documented over five intensive days in the studio. Together these extraordinary musicians created an expansive album and sound unlike any other band on the scene. Still growing and discovering what they’re capable of, the musicians of Pixel are in their prime, and the group’s compelling third album makes a case that these are the best of times on the Oslo scene.

This album contains no booklet.