Mats Aleklint

Like Axel Dörner in Germany and Ernesto Rodrigues in Portugal, among others, Swedish alto (and sometimes baritone) saxophonist Martin Küchen spans the artificial divisions imposed between the “new” and the “old” improvising schools.

Martin Küchen is naive and desperate, and maybe only because of that one might feel that each of his albums has a message. If this message may seem political, its sense is profoundly about human undertakings, and "Epileptical West", recorded live in Coimbra, Portugal, during the Jazz ao Centro festival, is no exception.

It was a special configuration of the Swedish band Angles that leader Martin Kuchen brought to the Ljubljana Jazz Festival in its 2011 edition. To the instrumental formation of the sextet was added a second saxophonist, Eirik Hegdal (baritone and sopranino), and a pianist, Alexander Zethson.