Photo; Mike H

Epik, Didaktik, Pastoral, the brand new album from composer and guitarist extraordinaire Samuel Hällkvist, is one of the most thrilling surprises of this summer. Released last week through BoogiePost / Burning Shed, the album is a wild and wondrous ride, filled with exciting and unexpected shifts throughout its ten original compositions, and flirting with a variety of genres and influences, from jazz and country to metal and electronic. Fluent in both composition and improvisation, Hällkvist displays his staggering inventiveness, offering a bold and refreshing contemporary album, bursting with sound colours and grooves.

To bring Epik, Didaktik, Pastoral to life, Hällkvist enlisted the help of a slew of talented players, including trumpeters Yazz Ahmed, Noel Langle and Luca Calabrese, bass players Dick Lövgren and Anne Marte Eggen, Knut Finsrud on drums and Katrine Amsler on sound design and programming.

For an exhilarating taste of the album, here’s one of the album tracks, ‘100 Takter med Piano’.