Ingebrigt Håker Flaten – db, eb, leader
Jawwaad Taylor – tp, rhymes, electronics and programming
Jason Jackson – as, bs
Jonathan F. Horne – g
Stefan Gonzalez – vibe, dr, perc, voc
Frank Rosaly – dr, electronics and programming

 

Formed in 2012 in Austin, Texas (USA), by Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, the band unites experimental music pioneers. Austin is famous for long-standing tradition of avant-garde music and culture of cross-genre improvisation. 

 

The intrepid experimentalists have left their mark on the progressive music scenes of Texas, Chicago, New York and Scandinavia. They are virtuosos treating genre distinctions with disdain, freely navigating between free jazz, grindcore, hip hop, experimental rock and other genres, the sonic chaos and the lyrical depth.

 

The band’s debut album A Mother’s Work Is Never Done (2014) showcased their electrifying live energy, and their second album Morose (2018) solidified their reputation as explorers of new soundscapes. After a six-year hiatus, The Young Mothers have produced their long-awaited third album Better If You Let It, which has further expanded the band’s sonic landscape with unexpected turns and twists, blends of avant-garde jazz, industrial sounds, surreal lyricism and funk.

 

Critics are unanimous in that Better If You Let It is the band’s most mature and compelling work. The Wire hailed it as “one of the finest examples of jazz/hip-hop fusion”, while MOJO named it “a one-way ticket to jazz’s other reaches”. Reviewers were quick to praise the album’s liberating, unbridled music, comparing it to the likes of Weather Report, John Zorn and Texan Ronald Shannon Jackson.

 

The Young Mothers’ vibrant experiments prove that jazz today is not only alive but is also unpredictable and more exciting than ever.

 

The Young Mothers have won acclaim at the most renowned jazz festivals in Austria, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, Norway, the US and other countries. In 2017, they took to the stage of Vilnius Jazz.

 

The band’s leader, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, entered the Scandinavian avant-garde jazz scene in the mid-1990s and became one of the busiest bassists in jazz. He has toured the world regularly and recorded more than 200 albums. He is known to Vilnius Jazz audience for his work with the legendary Scandinavian bands The Thing, Atomic and The Young Mothers, as well as for his performances with the US jazz coryphée David Murray and the Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen.

 

The acoustic and electric bass innovator studied jazz at the Trondheim Conservatory and later shaped his style by playing with various Scandinavian and overseas bands, which allowed him to expand his range of genres and geographical routes. Flaten’s music combines American and European jazz and improvisational explorations with the aesthetics of rock, hip-hop, folk and other genres.

 

It would be hard to imagine The Thing, Free Fall, Atomic, Scorch Trio, Icepick, I.P.A., Dave Rempis’ Percussion Quartet and numerous other projects without this improviser. In 2004, he made his debut as a leader with his Chicago Sextet, and since 2011 his aesthetics and philosophy have been expressed by The Young Mothers, as the bassist moved to the US in 2006, first staying in Chicago and later in Austin.

 

After arriving in Texas, he founded not only the band, but also the avant-garde festival Sonic Transmissions, which brought together the punk, hip-hop, free jazz and indie scenes. The Norwegian has been critically acclaimed for opening up new territories for local musicians and raising the criterion for alternative music in Austin. Between 2015 and 2020, Sonic Transmissions has presented over 100 musicians from the US, Latin America, Norway and other European countries. 

 

Since Flaten’s move back to Norway in 2020, Sonic Transmissions has been expanded into the Trondheim based festival Sonic Transmissions North and label Sonic Transmissions Records. 

 

The bassist has performed and recorded with a wide range of international celebrities, including James Blood Ulmer, Chick Corea, Yusef Lateef, Ken Vandermark, Peter Brötzmann, Bugge Wesseltoft, John Scofield, Mats Gustafsson, Dennis Gonzalez, Chris Potter, Joe Lovano, Bobby Bradford, Paul Lytton, Hamid Drake, Tony Malaby, Rob Mazurek, and in duos with Joe McPhee and Evan Parker.

 

In 2018, Flaten was awarded the Buddy Prize, the most prestigious award in Norwegian jazz. With Atomic, he has won the Spellemannprisen, Norway’s Grammy, twice. The bassist was repeatedly featured among the best in the critics’ poll of the influential Down Beat Magazine. 

 

Houston-based trumpeter, composer, producer, rapper and event host Jawwaad Taylor’s forte is free improvisation and progressive hip-hop. He calls trumpeter Joe McPhee his inspiration.

 

In addition to The Young Mothers, he has also been recognised for his collective Shape of Broad Minds, which released a well-received album, with contributions from hip hop celebrity MF Doom.

 

Taylor lived in New York for a while, collaborating with some of the world’s most famous rappers. The scene also brought him together with many stars of free jazz and improvised music. 

 

He is interested in political and historical issues and sees himself a researcher of culture and humanity. The trumpeter’s individual style and social commitment are most vividly manifested in his solo projects.

 

Saxophonist Jason Jackson is yet another luminary and one of the most active members of Houston’s improvised music scene. He is a regular performer in various projects as an independent artist and a member of The Young Mothers, Free Radicals and Alvin Fielder Quartet. Jackson’s stage partners include the Gonzales band Yells at Eels, the legendary trio Konk Pack, Tatsuya Nakatani, Donald Miller and Remi Alvarez. The saxophonist has sided Leroy Jenkins, Pauline Oliveros and William Parker. 

 

Jackson has had a varied musical experience since he was a teenager. His participation in the pioneering Nameless Sound music programme, which brought him into contact with music legends Evan Parker, Sam Rivers, Pauline Oliveros, Joe McPhee, John Butcher and Steve Lacy, has been a major creative boost. Jackson himself is currently the coordinator of and teacher in this educational programme.

 

Jonathan Farrell Horne is a self-taught guitarist from Texas. His musical journey began with an interest in folk, gospel and bluegrass, before diving into improvised music.

 

Since 2004, he has lived in Austin for 15 years and has become an integral part of the thriving and diverse music scene there, playing free jazz, improvised music, gospel and rock. In addition to The Young Mothers, the guitarist currently plays in a trio with Flaten and McPhee, Texas Butt Biters quartet with John Dikeman, Flaten and Stefan Gonzales, Plutonium Farmers, non-traditional duos, trios and other formations.

 

He has collaborated with many of the luminaries, including Rob Mazurek, Chad Taylor, Julien Desprez, Mette Rasmussen, Damon Smith, Dave Rempis, Chris Cogburn, Jeph Jerman, Tom Carter, Nate Cross, Misha Marks and Ichi Ni San Shi.

 

Dallas-based drummer, percussionist and vocalist Stefan Gonzalez is best known for his work with his family bands – the free jazz trio Yells at Eels (with his father, the renowned trumpeter, poet and visual artist Dennis Gonzalez, and  brother Aaron) and Akkolyte (with his brother). He also plays in the Dallas industrial noise trio Mother II.

 

Other important bands in the drummer’s biography include the punk rock band Unconscious Collective, Asukubus, Luis Lopes Humanization 4tet, Curtis Clark Trio and Renegade Spirits Ensemble with Famoudou Don Moye.

 

Gonzalez’s work ranges from jazz, punk, heavy metal to ambient music. He has collaborated with Mike Watt, Aram Shelton, Damon Smith, Tom Carter, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Remi Alvarez and many other well-known artists. In addition, he composes soundtracks for theatre productions and musicals.

 

Puerto Rican drummer, composer and sound designer Frank Rosaly is a member of Amsterdam’s improvised and experimental music community, navigating a fine line between the vibrant improvised and experimental music, as well as an active participant in jazz and rock projects in Europe and the US.

 

He studied at Northern Arizona University, lived in Chicago from 2001 to 2016, and since moving to Amsterdam has broadened his interests to include interdisciplinary projects, sound installations, electronics and musical theatre. His work combines the principles of jazz, classical percussion, improvisation and composition with elements of Latin American folklore and rituals.

 

Rosaly has been featured in more than 150 albums and played in numerous bands: Silverbones, Ruidoscuro, Natural Information Society, Health&Beauty, Anchor, OKAPI, Flatlands Collective, Rob Mazurek’s Mandarin Movie, Bobby Bradford and Frode Gjerstad Quartet, Jeff Parker and Nels Cline Quartet, The Rempis Percussion Quartet, Nicole Mitchell’s Ice Crystal Quartet, I. H. Flaten Quintet, duos with Colin Stetson and Thurston Moore, trios with Fred Lonberg and Holm Valentine, Scorch trio and quartet, The Jeb Bishop Trio and others. 

 

He has shared the stage with Rhys Chatham, Bobby Bradford, Andy Moore, Nate Wooley, Peter Brötzmann, Tony Malaby, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Coleman, Paul Flaherty, Marshall Allen, Louis Moholo, Nels Cline, Michael Zerang, and a host of other luminaries. 

 

Solo projects are an important part of his work. In addition to performing and composing, he organises events and trains as an instrument maker.