Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns shares final track from 'Bitches Blues' LP next week
On sophomore album Bitches Blues, Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns show yet another side of revered jazz guitarist Mollestad’s boundless sonic vision and curiosity. In contrast to the hefty “jazz Sabbath” hybrid of her long-running Hedvig Mollestad Trio, Bitches Blues is perhaps the gentlest, most introverted expression of her career, crafted alongside keyboardist Ståle Storløkken (Elephant9) and drummer Ole Mofjell (Nypan).
Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns will release Bitches Blues on April 17 via Rune Grammofon, and today shares its restlessly disconcerting title track.
“Weejuns is all about interplay,” explained Mollestad, a former Young Jazz Talent of the Year and Artist in Residence in her native Norway. “It ranges from riff-based instrumental rock-ish stuff, to loud chaos, to silent ballads with time signature changes and chord schemes, and even totally free improvisations.”
Influenced equally by Terje Rypdal, Roscoe Mitchell, Deep Purple, and Arvo Pärt, Weejuns (a slang abbreviation of “Norwegians”) introduced themselves with a self-titled 2023 double live album. Originally assembled by Mollestad just for the 2020 Kongsberg Jazz Festival, where she’d been awarded the prestigious Musicians Prize the year prior, Weejuns’ collective chemistry has proven enduring and alluring, in part as a foil to the Hedvig Mollestad Trio’s heaviest album to date, 2025’s Bees in the Bonnet.
“This is instrumental music performed by electric guitar, organ/synth, and a drum set,” said Mollestad, a multi-instrumentalist/composer who’s been playing guitar since age 10. “Bitches Blues consists of six tracks, or stretches of music, with an extreme range of dynamics. Some are based around hefty beats and good rhythm, while other tracks are far more lyrical and rubato.”
A graduate of the Norwegian Academy of Music, Mollestad has released eight acclaimed albums with her eponymous Trio, toured across Europe and North America, and performed with the likes of Nels Cline, Colin Stetson, Ingrid Laubrock, Trevor Dunn, and Shahzad Ismaily. The signature of her 15-year career has been fusing serious chops with an overt focus on finding fun in sound.
Taking a cultured yet refreshingly instinctive approach to intertwining instruments and influences, Bitches Blues (a wry play on legendary Miles Davis album Bitches Brew – and not even remotely a blues record) veers unpredictably from slow and soft, distinctly sectioned songs with disciplined chord structures to explosive eruptions of cathartic, cacophonous, and utterly visceral chaos.
“Bitches Blues is a piece of music, made by me and us, trying as sincerely as we can to make it sound good,” Mollestad concluded, with characteristically charming understatement. “Or at least funny or interesting!”
Read more
All articles →
