For some lesser known artists using the services of famous musicians is just a means to draw attention, and prominent guests are just that: guests. Which is why a decade-and-a-half-long collaboration between Steve Hackett and Magyar collective DJABE has long become special – because the English guitarist was incorporated into this ensemble and not only records with them but also tours with his Hungarian friends. Yet while there have been ten concert albums to bring it all to the masses, studio platters appeared not as frequently, 2020’s “The Magic Stag” being the last one. Not for long, though, as February 28th will see the release of “Freya”: the result of the international enterprise’s recent Arctic adventures.
This album came to be during DJABE and Hackett’s visit to Norway, where they performed at the BodØ Jazz Open festival, a hundred kilometers above the Arctic Circle, and jammed off-stage enough to produce quite a few ideas which deserved working on. And that’s what’s preserved on CD and its companion Blu-ray in, respectively, stereo and surround sound, with the latter disc also containing live material, some aural and some visual, and a documentary. After their Sardinian document, a colder report must be interesting.
Freya
CD:
1. In The Silence
2. Freya
3. Stone Age Tea
4. Whispers Of The Woods
5. Sliding Trees
6. The Lost Ship
7. A Storm Is Brewing
Blu-ray:
* Freya – 5.1 mix
1-7 – as on CD
* Live audio extras:
1. Beginning Of Legends
2. The Magic Stag
3. Golden Sand
4. Island
* Live video extras – Győr, Hungary – June 19th, 2023:
1. Camino Royale
2. Ace Of Wands
3. Tale
4. The Carpet Crawlers
* Documentary – Arctic Jam
