Flux

Crossing borders between the style of jazz and that of famous classical composers, young Danish master musicians Mathias Heise and Bjarke Mogensen meet in a repertoire that explores sound qualities common to their two instruments as well as those where they differ. Mathias plays the chromatic harmonica — handheld, mouth-blown and tiny when measured against Bjarke’s 17-kilo two-arm free-bass accordion.

Heise and Mogensen met for the first time when they both performed on the late Bent Fabricius-Bjerre's last album, “Natsværmeri”. Not least because of their special yet related instruments it didn't take long before these two renowned performers found a mutual interest in exploring each other’s characteristic world of sound. So, a very special constellation was born, and the duo's first performance was duly broadcast on Danish national television and radio.

That the chromatic harmonica and the free-bass accordion have much in common in the way they produce sound does not come as a surprise, and in fact the instruments have a common ancestor in the ancient Chinese instrument, 'Sheng'. Even so, the constellation of free-bass accordion and chromatic harmonica is extremely rare, and the only released recording with the same line-up of instruments dates from 1960, the duo then consisting of Mogens Ellegaard from Denmark (accordion) and Cham-Ber Huang  from China (harmonica)

For their debut release, the present-day duo of Mogensen and Heise have chosen to present their own compositions as well as miniatures by Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Debussy, Hermeto Pascoal and, of course, Bent Fabricius-Bjerre — the latter represented by music composed for Mogensen's accordion in the Brecht piece “The Immigrant” (played here in an extended duo version), and by “Norwegian Sunset” from the hugely popular puppet film, “Flåklypa”, which Mathias Heise arranged especially for this release.