Mats Gustafsson

Mats Gustafsson, the Swedish performer on reeds who also improvises and composes, merges the intensity of the free jazz lineage with Europe's microtonal approaches through his advanced saxophone methods. An output exceeding several hundred albums together with countless joint projects demonstrates his comprehensive grasp of jazz, blues, improvisation, and leading-edge classical lineages. He has both recorded and toured alongside a striking array of musicians that includes Peter Brötzmann, Derek Bailey, Neneh Cherry, and Tomeka Reid. The 1992 album Mouth Eating Trees and Related Activities remains a cornerstone of avant-jazz. Solo saxophone sessions such as 2008's Mats G Plays Duke E and 2012's Bengt display the contrasting directions of his curiosity, while 2015's Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper, recorded with Thurston Moore, Merzbow, and Balazs Pandi, emphasizes an aesthetic drawn from improvisational rock. On 2018's Timeless, created with vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, Gustafsson concentrated on the closeness of extended harmonics within a nearly melodic framework, and the 2020 release Cuts Open together with 2022's Na Ja, both involving Brötzmann, reconciled forceful energy with subtle conceptual frameworks. The 2023 duo album Their Power Reached Across Space and Time - To Defy Them Was Death or Worse appeared with noted electronicist and producer Joachim Nordwall.

Born during 1964 in Umeå, a region notable for its cultural vitality, Gustafsson encountered numerous Swedish improvisers at an early age, among them saxophonist Lars Göran Ulander and pianist Per Henrik Wallin. The flute served as his initial instrument, yet by his early teenage years he had also taken up the saxophone. Near the age of 14 he attached his saxophone mouthpiece to a flute for a journey and has performed on that hybrid instrument, the fluteophone, ever since, alongside more conventional reed instruments. His earliest improvisations occurred with drummer Kjell Nordeson, who later established the AALY Trio alongside Gustafsson.

During the mid-1980s Gustafsson relocated to Stockholm, where he encountered percussionist Sten Sandell and drummer Raymond Strid. The three musicians formed Gush in 1988, two years after the launch of Gustafsson's duo with Christian Munthe, Two Slices of Acoustic Car. He also collaborated with Berlin-based Sven-Åke Johansson at that time, thereby gaining familiarity with the German scene. In 1990 Gustafsson appeared in Derek Bailey's Company in London. He likewise began regular visits to the United States, becoming a fixture within Chicago's improvising circles as the 1990s advanced and working extensively with Hamid Drake and Ken Vandermark, among others. Additional collaborators have included Barry Guy, Paul Lovens, Georg Graewe, and Jaap Blonk, as well as membership in Peter Brötzmann's all-star Chicago Octet/Tentet. Gustafsson has further engaged artists working in dance, theater, poetry, and painting.

Ongoing projects encompass the AALY Trio with Nordeson and bassist Peter Janson, whose third album, Live at the Glen Miller Cafe, appeared on the Wobbly Rail label in 1999. During 2000 he released a new solo album on the Drag City subsidiary Blue Chopsticks, the Steve Lacy tribute titled Windows. Hidros One followed in early 2001.

As the twenty-first century opened, Gustafsson grew markedly prolific, issuing nearly three dozen albums over the ensuing decade either as leader or collaborator. Among those recordings are Dat and I Love It When You Snore with Paal Nilssen-Love (2002); Blues with David Stackenäs and Off Road with David Grubbs (2003); Hidros 3 with Sonic Youth (2004); Slide Away (2005); The Fat Is Gone with Nilssen-Love and Brötzmann (2007); Mats G Plays Duke E (2008); Mats G Plays Albert A (2009); Needs! (2010); One Bird Two Bird with Masami Akita (aka Merzbow) and Jim O'Rourke; and Bengt (2012).

In 2008 Gustafsson, Nilssen-Love, and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten established the trio the Thing, which recorded several albums including Cherry Thing, a 2012 collaboration with vocalist Neneh Cherry. During 2009 he formed Fire! with Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin; the ensemble has released four albums, among them the 2012 recording In the Mouth: A Hand, which features guest guitarist Oren Ambarchi.

Gustafsson joined saxophonist Colin Stetson for Stones, issued in January 2013, followed in March by the RareNoise release Cuts, a collaboration with Merzbow and Balázs Pándi. In November of that year the Thing issued Boot! after founding its own imprint, the Thing Records. The year 2014 found the saxophonist working with the Nu Ensemble on Hidros6 Knockin' on Not Two and releasing the solo album Torturing the Saxophone on Corbett vs. Dempsey. Altogether he participated in or released no fewer than a dozen recordings that year.

The year 2015 proved equally productive. Gustafsson opened his fiftieth year with Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper, another RareNoise session involving Merzbow, Pandi, and Thurston Moore. The saxophonist and guitarist issued Hit the Wall! through Smalltown Supersound. He also remained active with his other ensembles: the Gush trio with Raymond Strid and Sten Sandell released The March, Slobber Pup (with Jamie Saft, Pandi, and Joe Morris) delivered Pole Axe through RareNoise, and the Thing issued its twelfth album, The Shake. In October Gustafsson marked his birthday with three nights of performances at the Porgy & Bess Theater in Vienna. The programs featured assorted solos, duos, trios, and quartets and included appearances by both the Thing and Fire!. A four-disc box set, credited to Mats Gustafsson & Friends, emerged on Trost in mid-2016 under the title MG50: Peace and Fire. It contained concert highlights together with a booklet of essays and photographs. That same year a greatly expanded Fire! — renamed the Fire! Orchestra — released Ritual via Rune Grammofon. Verses, a duo with Ken Vandermark, appeared in 2017, followed a year later by Timeless with Jason Adasiewicz. Also in 2018, Cuts Up, Cuts Out, the successor to 2015's Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper with Thurston Moore, Merzbow, and Balazs Pandi, came out on Rare Noise. Brace for Impact, an archival duo recording with multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee captured across sessions in 2007 and 2010, followed one month later on Corbett vs. Dempsey.

Gustafsson toured extensively throughout 2019, appearing at halls, clubs, and festivals with scant opportunity for studio work. Nevertheless, two notable releases emerged that year. In April, Smalltown Supersound issued Link, drawn from a 2006 duo session with Christian Marclay. In December, Corbett vs. Dempsey released The Shithole Country & Boogie Band Featuring Mats Gustafsson. Gustafsson contributed raw saxophone improvisations to experimental electronicist Wendy Gondeln, who likewise supplied spindled sounds from her deliberately primitive violin playing. The pair enlisted Martin Siewert for guitar on two tracks and invited minimal techno pioneer and Kompakt label co-founder Wolfgang Voigt to edit and remix two others.

In early 2020 the Greek label Underflow, an outlet of an Athens art gallery and record store, issued the limited-edition box set Worn. Kissed. Recorded merely weeks earlier, it presented a trio of Gustafsson improvisations across three vinyl sides inspired by the paintings of Edward Jarvis, whose exhibition then covered the gallery walls, and included a 48-page exhibition catalog. The digital-only album Countdown followed in July on the Italian Superpang label. Gustafsson utilized bass and baritone saxophones, organ, bass drum, and electronics. In September, Rare Noise released Cuts Open, a double-length document of the Gustafsson, Merzbow, and Pandi trio recorded two years prior. While it preserved the aggressive and visceral character of its immediate predecessors, the 86-minute, four-track set examined airier, though equally forceful, sonic terrains steeped in an atmosphere of dread.

Hydros 8 - Heal, a 2016 session with Gustafsson and the Nu Ensemble, appeared in 2022. That year he also collaborated with Brötzmann on Na Ja, employing the saxophonist's Fluxus-style card prompts for solo improvisations. In March 2023 Gustafsson and electronicist Joachim Nordwall, formerly of Fire! Orchestra, released the improvised duo album Their Power Reached Across Space and Time - To Defy Them Was Death or Worse on Chicago indie Thrill Jockey.