Peders Hode: The Things I Ate (Sonic Transmissions Records – STRLP18)

With the release of the album The Things I Ate, the talented guitarist and composer Peder Overvik Stuberg (b. 1996) makes a bold entrance unto the international jazz scene. The album showcases an instrumentalist, a band leader and a composer with a varied yet simultaneously distinctive and remarkable well honed style. A style that is forward leaning and brimming with personality, while also revealing traces of the likes of Sonny Sharrock and Jeff Parker as well as John Coltrane and Lee Konitz. As Stuberg himself says it: “The title The Things I Ate hints to the fact that I have many sources of inspiration, which in my head merges into new music.”

The Things I Ate is an ambitious release, containing 14 original compositions, 9 of which are recorded with the quartet aptly named Peders Hode (meaning “Peder’s head”), which consists of Peder Overvik Stuberg on guitar, Ask Morris Rasmussen on tenor sax, Alf Svendsen Høines on double bass, and Elias Tafjord on drums. The remaining 5 compositions are performed by an extended octet, with Amelia Gòmez Snerte on vocals, Håvard Aufles and Anna Ueland on keys, and Martin Heggli Mellem on drums.

Throughout the album, one may notice echoes of distinctive guitarists like Sonny Sharrock, for example in the snarling tone on the spiky “Speed On Speed”, Jeff Parker in the economical playing and post-rock like atmosphere of the title tune, and in certain phrases and compositional characteristics there are hints of a kinship to Mary Halvorson. Stuberg shares another characteristic with these esteemed musicians in that the inspiration is not merely focused around the guitar. Rather, there’s a clear concern for the whole with an emphasis on composition as well as improvisation, and the value of allowing ones compatriots to make their mark on the music. An example of this can be heard in the opening tune, “Hva Skjer”, where the tone is set by the drums and the bass in hefty and stomping interplay, before the tenor sax and guitar enters some time later, playing darting lines in tandem.

Stuberg describes Peders Hode as a group of friends as much as a band. In addition to common inspirations like Sonny Rollins and other 50s and 60s jazz, the members have other interests of their own, like Brazilian music, electronic music, prog rock, and more, interests that occasionally adds seasoning to Stuberg’s music. As such, The Things I Ate reveals an exceptionally well honed band of musicians that are allowed and dare to add their own voices to the overarching compositional framework.

The quartet part of the album feels compact and tight, consisting of pieces that in various ways grabs hold and pull the listener through sharp twists and turns. The music for the octet was rehearsed for the duration of two days ahead of recording and live performance on the occasion of Stubergs exam concert. These pieces tend to stretch out more, and have a slightly more airy and open feel to them. “Speed,” for example, eventually spins into prog rock-like explorations, while parts of “Kast Sats Fart” sound like spiritual-jazz filtered through hip-hop samples and subsequently performed by a live ensemble.

The variation and breadth on the Things I Ate hints towards a wide ranging net of inspirations, but has a marked wholeness, as well as a through line, both through Stuberg’s compositional style, his peculiar playing style, as well as through the contributions of the other band members of Peders Hode and in the attentive and open minded interplay of everyone involved in the recording. The album is being released in three instances: first with the release of the teaser EP New Wave EP on September 22., while an LP version focusing on the octet and a digital release containing both this as well as the quartet recordings will be released on October 7.

Peder Overvik Stuberg (January 17., 1996) grew up in Inderøy, Nord-Trøndealg, in Norway. He studied at the renowned Jazzlinja at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim from 2017 to 2023. He works as a musician, and this fall teaches at the jazz department of Sund Folkehøgskole.