Since the release of her debut album ‘Noordzee’ (Igloo, 2009), Eve Beuvens has continued to search for a harmony of contrasts, moving from unadorned music to richer colors. The success of her carte blanche at the Gaume jazz Festival 2013 with her septet Heptatomic led to a first album for Igloo in 2015. Now she is back in a more intimate setting, a Nordic quartet featuring long-standing partners with whom she recorded a self-released album in 2013.

Luck can sometimes play interesting tricks: all it took was a flyer and a few clicks on Myspace for the Belgian pianist Eve Beuvens to meet Swedish saxophonist Mikael Godée. That was ten years ago.

From the first concerts as a duo, a very natural complicity grew between these two musicians whose melodic lyricism and sense of rhythm complement each other perfectly. Very quickly, they were joined by Magnus Bergström on double bass and Johan Birgenius on drums, one of the most popular rhythmic sections in Sweden. They brought life to the MEQ quartet, an abbreviation of Mikael-Eve Quartet. Nine years later, after dozens of concerts, they recorded “Looking Forward”, their second release as a quartet. The frontmen Eve and Mikael wrote the compositions that come across as a homogeneous ensemble. Linked by natural trust, the four instrumentalists propose music that is bold.

Although it evokes northern lyricism, it is both energetic, unique and warm. “Looking Forward” is an expedition into a Nordic forest that comes alive with bursts of colour!

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