Emerging from the Copenhagen underground scene – the saxophonist Maria Dybbroe is also a member of the local bands Caktus and Bloomers, with Cyclism by Bloomers arriving last year as part of a collaboration between the Copenhagen-based Barefoot Records and the New York experimental bastion Relative Pitch – the relation of Dybbroe, Valdemar Kragelund and Kristian Saarup as Køs might seem at first like that of a conventional free jazz trio on reeds, bass and drums.
Instead the screeds of Dybbroe, her softer and more whimsical vocals as they overlap with the shared sentiments and interjections of Saarup, plus the vital addition of Kragelund’s electronics and live-processing together allow Køs to roam untethered towards ambient territory, dreamy and enveloping but with a twist as their lush soundscapes continue to pack an almighty punch.
Owing as much to say Sonic Youth as their Danish forebears who might include everyone from Palle Mikkelborg and Marilyn Mazur to Thomas Knak and Jakob Bro, this is exploratory music with real shape and heft, drawing in close as Worldsorrow – an album recorded during a period of isolation on the slender island of Ærø during the coronavirus pandemic – proves their most landscaping, terraforming and altogether sonically transfixing project to date.
