Trost Records is pleased to release Live at Kafé Hærverk, the latest transmission from one of the most exciƟng figures in European jazz, the Oslo-based Danish saxophonist and composer Amalie Dahl. Since dropping the debut album with her stellar quintet Dafnie in 2022, Dahl has enjoyed a meteoric rise, both in terms of acclaim and ambition. This new live album, taped at one of Oslo’s most beloved venues in March of 2025, arrives on the heels of the duly lauded Dafnie Extended—Live at Molde Jazz, a dazzling recording of an enlarged iteration of the quintet bolstered by the presence of some genuine Scandinavian legends, including bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and pianist Lisa Ullén. The expanded firepower and contrapuntal snap of the band is matched by the leader’s evolving talents as a composer and arranger. Yet before Dafnie Extended was even conceived, Dahl had already embraced the change to work with Ullén.

Dahl, who’s also become an invaluable part of Håker Flaten’s great (Exit) Knaar, first met Ullén when they were both partecipating in the 2024 ediƟon of Share Impro in Aarhus, Denmark. The saxophonist felt an immediate kinship and after discussing a desire to join forces, Dahl began looking for gigs. Koen  Vandenhoudt, one of the organizers of Antwerp’s Summer Bummer Festival not only embraced her proposal, but suggested that she go bigger, leading to Dafnie Extended. But Dahl never surrendered the desire to work more closely with Ullén, so she organized a Dafnie tour with the pianist as a guest. As one  can hear, Ullén became part of the band, both on fresh revamps of Dafnie favorites along with a new tune. 

The Mingus-grade ebullience and muscle of her Dafnie—trombonist Jørgen Bjelkerud, trumpeter Oscar Andreas Haug, double bassist Nicolas Leirtrø, and drummer Patrycja Wybranczyk, deply subbing on the tour for the band’s regular drummer Veslemøy Narvesen—digs deep into the leader’s earthy yet  sophisticated tunes, erasing any divide between post-bop classicism and free jazz, all of which vanishes within the rigor, tunefulness, and soul of the compositions. Ullén’s forceful, sinewy lines consistently fill out the band’s sound, with blocky left-handed tremors, fleet, stabbing accents, and galvanic solos that penetrate the essence of Dahl’s writing with almost telepathic understanding.

Rather than altering the band’s searing dynamic, the pianist pushes it, making it deeper and more open. As usual, Dahl inhabits her own compositions with stunning elaticity and narrative drive, trusting in her  bandmates to support her most outward sallies. Whether the fierce gallop of the new piece “Wavelet” or the devastatingly version of “Eco-Echoes,” the instant classic from Dafnie’s second album Står op med Solen, the music captures the full range of Dahl’s broad compositional palette, and the partnership with Ullén makes it even more profound.