Hedvig Mollestad & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra Share 'Maternity Suite' This Friday

Hedvig Mollestad & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra will release the sprawling double album Maternity Beat this Friday, November 18 via Rune Grammofon (Pre-order physical HERE and pre-save via DSPs HERE).

Recorded with the 12-piece Trondheim Jazz Orchestra (who have previously worked with legends like Chick Corea and Joshua Redman), Maternity Beat is a true career milestone, encompassing the full evolution of Mollestad's sound to date and offering deeply personal meditations on the nature of family and pressing social justice issues.

We announced the release with the propulsive "All Flights Cancelled" and shared "On the Horizon, Part 2" last month. Today, Hedvig Mollestad & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra offers a final glimpse into the groundbreaking album sharing the epic, "Maternity Suite."

"'Maternity Suite' is that grandiose prog-suite rising from megalomaniac ideas when I first started working on this music," says Mollestad. "I wanted this last piece to be as triumphant and powerful as the euphoria of rightfully being let loose from something holding you back, marching united forward towards life at its most joyful! I wanted it to embrace the full power of the whole band altogether, at the same time I wanted to create a journey through shapes and landscapes, of course containing heavy riffs and multiple maxblast-power-solos, to embrace the full freedom!"

Hedvig says Maternity Beat is her most ambitious work to date, and that's not a proclamation to be taken lightly. Mollestad, after all, has been one of Norway's most adventurous and hardest-working musicians since the Molde International Jazz Festival named her the 'Young Jazz Talent of the Year' in 2009.

The sheer sonic and emotional scope of the Rune Grammofon-released Maternity Beat required Mollestad wear multiple hats: guitar explorer, composer, arranger, improviser, collaborator, and, as the striking title implies, mother. That latter role serves as the album's thematic focus. This represents a novel direction for her. As Mollestad points out, "I used to be reluctant about talking about gender and motherhood in relation to what I was doing as a musician."

Jazz has witnessed an explosion of boundary-breaking creativity in the last several years. The boom of musicians interested in cutting-edge forms of fusion, spiritual jazz, and electronic-based improvisation has infused the genre with an urgency relevant to our tumultuous times. Mollestad-who likens the making of Maternity Beat to the jittery thrill of "jumping off a cliff"-embodies precisely the kind of daring that makes her not only a vital leader in the Norwegian jazz scene but also a key voice in jazz's global vanguard.

Maternity Beat Track List

1 - On the Horizon, Part 1

2 - On the Horizon, Part 2

3 - Do Re Mi Ma Ma

4 - Donna Ovis Peppa

5 - Little Lucid Demons / Alfons

6 - All Flights Cancelled

7 - Her Own Shape

8 - Maternity Beat

9 - Maternity Suite