The distance between Texas and Norway is less than you’d think.
Sure, there’s the literal, geographical distance – it’s about 4,836 miles, give or take, from Dallas to Oslo. And the differences in culture, climate — even food. Norway’s national dish is a stew of mutton and cabbage … which is decidedly not chili, the Texas state dish.
But, for The Young Mothers, an Oslo-based band whose sound genuinely defies description — it’s possible to catch elements of everything from free jazz to punk to hip-hop in its songs — the gap is only as great as a handful of musicians from across Texas, including percussionist/vibraphonist Stefan Gonzalez.
The group’s third and latest album, Better If You Let It, is out now, and features performances from Gonzalez, as well as fellow Texans Jawwaad Taylor and Jonathan F. Horne.
The Young Mothers is the brainchild of bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, who also owns the indie record label Sonic Transmissions, which recently released another project tied to North Texas, the debut from Trio Glossia. Flaten lived in Austin from 2009 until 2021, when he relocated back to his home in Norway.
“He’s one of the hardest working guys,” Gonazlez told KXT recently. “He travels more than 300 days out of the year to play music with so many of the masters. In 2011, The Young Mothers formed … doing The Young Mothers with [Flaten] is when I really got to know him, through his amazing way of composing. Even though he’s one of the biggest and baddest bass players and band leaders, he’s so incredibly fair and considerate to the people who play with him.”
The five-track release, which marks the first new music from The Young Mothers in six years, was recorded toward the end of 2022 in Oslo, where, in 1993, Gonzalez’s late father, Dennis, had traveled to record Welcome to Us, an album featuring some of Norway’s preeminent jazz artists, such as Nils Petter Molvaer and Pal Thowsen.
“I vividly remember him mapping out this music at home, prior to him traveling to Europe to meet up and record with said musicians,” Stefan Gonzalez said in a statement. “I decided on a whim that it would be beautiful if we could pull off some sort of tribute to my father’s music from his time spent in Oslo.”
The result is a rendition of “Song for a Poet,” the penultimate track on Better If You Let It, which Gonzalez described in a statement as “really capturing the melancholic and spiritual qualities that my father loved about Scandinavian jazz.”
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky (@prestonjones.bsky.social).Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
