I can't say whether or not Norwegian pop fans are smarter than their American counterparts, but Jaga Jazzist's commercial success in their native Norway suggests that they at least have sturdier attention spans. It's difficult to imagine a wordless fjord of post-rock, jazz fusion, ambient electronica, and outlying points cracking the hook-happy American charts, but that's just what the influential dectet's 2002 sophomore album The Stix did upon its release in Norway. Only Coldplay and Queens of the Stone Age separated it from the top slot.
Even more outlandish is the idea of something like Jaga on America's compartmentalized commercial radio, but "All I Know Is Tonight", the first song on What We Must, is already in rotation in Norway. The track is nearly eight minutes of gentle pageantry: An echoing cavern of triumphant guitars and keys, the breathy song of wind and reed instruments, adroit percussion dancing concisely around the beat, and a beautifully barren middle section where a silvery, liquid guitar lead delicately contorts through distinct moods and colors before igniting in a series of minor explosions, more like sparklers than fireworks. On pop radio. For perspective, imagine tuning in to a major American station and hearing Nickelback fade into a Broken Social Scene instrumental. My mind!
The members of Jaga Jazzist can be traced through various high-profile Scandinavian bands including Motorpsycho, Supersilent, and Shining, and if you're beginning to liken their role in the Norwegian art-pod to Godspeed's in Montreal's incestuous scene, you're on the right track. What We Must plays like Godspeed encased in ice, shorn of dissonance and tooth-grinding crescendos to reveal a purely melodic, understatedly majestic core. It's alternately narcotic and galvanizing, like Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's Virðulegu forsetar with a few more notes and lot more instruments, and its pleasures are many: "Stardust Hotel", a springy, reverb-drenched dream of flight; the sparse, fluid music-box jazz of "For All You Happy People"; a chorus of angels with long brass horns straddling "Oslo Skyline"; and the shapeshifting Apostle of Hustle-like cloud of voice-synths, bubbly drums and fleet vibes on "I Have a Ghost Now What?"
Those of you who like your instrumental music to be fractured and shrouded might prefer the aforementioned Shining and write off Jaga as boring; the rest should find ample rewards in What We Must's effortless sonority and memorable arrangements. And if you're like me, you're dreaming of a gigantic antenna powerful enough to pick up radio signals from Norway.
