Ullén – Bergman – Lund: Space

Lisa Ullén (SE): piano, Elsa Bergman (SE): double bass and Anna Lund (SE): drums

Ullén – Bergman – Lund is a Stockholm-based piano trio that improvises freely and combines the American free jazz tradition with contemporary music. Combining raw power and intense attention to detail, the three musicians make every moment sparkle with possibility. In this sound space, every movement matters.

Ullén, Bergman and Lund are all prominent players in Scandinavian free jazz circles, and the trio first met in the Anna Högberg Attack sextet and have since played together on several occasions. Their debut album Space was recorded by Mats Äleklint during the pandemic in 2021 at the legendary Fylkingen and released by the American label Relative Pitch Records in 2022.

The album embodies the trio’s own improvisational aesthetic. The musicians eagerly harmonize with each other and they find a common ground for rhythms that roll and change, tumultuous in one phase and then refined in the next. Bergman instinctively guides her warm and supportive bass playing through the spaces created by Lund’s soaring cymbals and twitching snare rhythms, providing a solid foundation for Ullén’s fierce clusters and stormy melodic floods, but also for her most fragile expression, even if it means silence. Each musician occasionally uses extended techniques and sound variations, but ultimately the main focus is on refined spontaneous interaction.

The band performed at this year’s Jazzfest Berlin.

Photo: Tina Axelsson

The concert is supported by City of Helsinki, Svenska Kulturfonden, The Finnish Music Foundation and Swedish Arts Council.