When has music stupefied you last? Enraptured you, carried you away?
Treat yourself to a concert of the Mats/Morgan Band! These Swedes take you through melodic landscapes rarely visited and then onto wherever their muse leads them. Upon witnessing howwell-honed this cohesive unit is playing such largely improvised music, you may well ask yourself how their tight precision is possible ...when the front man can hear only sparsely and is blind since his birth. But gradually it dawns on you, just what’s happening up on that stage: the seventh sense becoming music.
"It's probably something like telepathy," Morgan Ågren tries to describe the supernatural interaction with Mats Öberg. The two of them have been playing together since they were children; having joined forces after they were spotted as outstanding talents and had performed publicly in their tot days already, thus turning their home town of Umeå into a Salzburg anno Mozart, child prodigy.
In their teens Mats and Morgan fell in love with the complex compositions of Frank Zappa. They crammed themselves with his enormous works, and when they traveled to Stockholm for their first concert of his, they were presented to the great master backstage – who invited them without further ado to join in on a song during the show. And in his next TV interview Zappa raved about the 16 and 20-year-olds: "They played unbelievable, just unbelievable!"(www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0u2psaFU0k)
After said tour Frank Zappa asked the two Swedes to come to California, and after a more detailed check of their instrumental abilities, he selected them to be his next keyboard player and drummer. But soon he was diagnosed with the illness that unfortunately was to lead to his untimely death and should deprive Mats Öberg and Morgan Ågren of a career with Zappa.
Nevertheless, 25 years and numerous Mats/Morgan records later, these Norsemen have long gained a superb reputation of their own. Their very individual blend of styles certainly appeals to everybody who likes experimental jazz and rock. But added to the influences of Miles Davis, Zappa or theMahavishnu Orchestra, with Mats and Morgan you also get soulful grooves in the vein of Earth, Wind & Fire.
Together with the longtime Meshuggah bassist Gustaf Hielm and Stefan Jernståhl on guitar and synthesizer, the blind keyboard wizard Mats Öberg and Morgan Ågren, voted the number 1 fusion drummer in “Modern Drummer” magazine’s 2010 reader’s poll, create a highly adventurous experience. They organically combine humor and imagination, they perform hypnotically infectious songs with the same musical authority as they master metrically difficult compositions with breathtaking speed. In short: These Swedes seem capable of playing absolutely anything with great gusto.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpPLwIepXHg