If Swedish bassist and producer Petter Eldh were known only for his work as an instrumentalist I suspect he’d still be widely regarded as a contemporary colossus. Over the last decade and some he has lent his unquenchable thirst for exploration to the ensembles of Django Bates (Belovèd), Kit Downes (ENEMY), Gard Nilssen (Acoustic Unity) and Lucia Cadotsch (Speak Low), amongst others. Yet it’s perhaps his work as a producer and a leader of groups including Koma Saxo and Projekt Drums that takes you closer to the centre of his musical universe, a place where jazz, electronica, breakbeat and hip-hop elide to devastating effect. Often the places where he’ll push hardest at musical boundaries, they confirm him as one of contemporary jazz’s brightest talents.
The first volume of Projekt Drums (Edition Records, 2021) was a short but pithy exposition of Eldh’s studio craft. Essentially a collaboration with six drummers – Eric Harland, Savannah Harris, Richard Spaven, James Maddren and Gard Nilssen – Eldh proceeded to slice, dice and layer a variety of sampled and pre-recorded material into eight perfectly-formed assemblages, each with its own distinct rhythmic attack and tonal colour. On Volume 2 he works with just three of the original cast – Harris, Maddren and Spaven – but the music feels more honed and evolved. Amidst even the most turbulent of rhythmic maelstroms airy melodies pop like vivid bursts of colour, carried by an impressive coterie of horns including Per “Texas” Johansson (contrabass clarinet), Nabou Claerhout (trombone), Alistair Payne (trumpet) and Ketija Ringa Karahona (flute). Fellow Berlin resident Kit Downes (piano) scatters his magic across the piece, while Eldh’s stirring bass-driven grooves generally hold things together and provide the rocket fuel.
The attractive quasi-orchestral motifs of the opening Midsum Brew soon give way to a sequence of jagged beats and staccato riffs, Harris and Eldh locking-in tight. Segueing seamlessly into Brew 25, the motif is further developed as Eldh’s beat designs kick into overdrive. Nod Yorc places Maddren at the heart of an arrangement with melodic hooks aplenty, lounge jazz and drum ’n’ bass influences to the fore. Oystri is built on Spaven’s breakbeats and moves through a series of carefully controlled changes of tempo, while the light flute-led theme of Kroydon Return defies the gravitational pull of Maddren’s fractured beats, prefacing a wonderfully reflective solo from Downes. The bustling theme of Lorimer Axes introduces an African feel, and Django Bates is co-credited as rhythmic designer on Kon, a kaleidoscope of shifting beats and colours which move inexorably towards a startlingly cinematic conclusion (think of John Barry). Closing all too soon with GY2 NATT, a soulful vibe takes root before Eldh’s doleful bass loops provides a delicious counterpoint to Spaven’s increasingly busy breaks.
An album which on the one hand should send fans of Madlib, Flying Lotus and Squarepusher into happy delirium, Projekt Drums Vol. 2 has enough compositional rigour and rhythmic suspense to reward more traditionally leaning audiences too.
Projekt Drums Vol. 2 is released on 10 October 2025
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