Kind Of Jazz · Funk · Rock · Fusion
“It’s a game where you have a piece of time and you get to decorate it.”
Credits
Credits
The band
Built around Fender Rhodes, electric guitar, bass, and drums, plus some mysterious overdubs, MÄRLA is a groove based jamband jazzrockfunkfusion-adventure with a pretty laidback attitude. Plus some unexpected musical detours.
Reviews
“They have discovered something many bands desperately search for, but rarely find: the groove.”
MÄRLA made a thoroughly charming debut not so long ago, presenting a collection of groovy, airy jazz-rock tracks that clearly revealed a genuine love for the genre. With their follow-up, they demonstrate that this love is everlasting – and seemingly in limitless supply.
The band, featuring Johan Nilsson on electric guitar, Ann Blom on Fender Rhodes, Samuel Nilsson on bass and Gustav Vikström Seltman on drums, takes us on a journey through ten beautifully crafted, tightly grooving and highly polished tracks. Enough to send any jazz cat with a taste for sophisticated fusion and smooth jazz-rock into a state of pure bliss.
There is no shortage of electric guitar solos with wah-wah pedal, while the electric piano generously spreads its wonderfully magical warmth. MÄRLA also demonstrates an increasingly broad musical palette. Just listen to the phenomenal Midnight Marketplace, with its gorgeous Latin flavours, honey-smooth soprano saxophone and unexpected backing vocals. It all suggests that MÄRLA is spreading its wings and preparing to soar to even greater heights.
With Jezze All Smiles, featuring a powerful, Pastorius-inspired bass line, the band shows that they have discovered something many bands desperately search for, but rarely find: the groove. And Dios mío, how beautifully they handle it.
The question is: when are they hitting the road? I would certainly love to hear them live.
MÄRLA uses a structural rhythmic shift to subvert expectations on “Instant Regret,” twisting a steady groove into an unstable musical detour. The track establishes its foundation on a main bass riff that hits on the first beat before shifting to the second eighth note after four bars. This turnaround breaks the pattern of 1970s electric fusion, forcing the rhythm section to realign its timing in mid-motion. A simple melody floats above this altered groundwork, maintaining equilibrium while the underlying rhythm slips.
The structured funk framework disintegrates halfway through the performance, expanding into a long improvisation. Johan Nilsson’s electric guitar and Ann Blom’s Fender Rhodes abandon the initial riff to enter a free jazz space in the spirit of Frank Zappa, contrasting the breezy, harmonic Rhodes simplicity of M!SAki, ROBINS: Dreamin with unpredictable rhythmic improvisation. Samuel Nilsson’s electric bass and Gustav Vikström Seltman’s drums drop the steady time signature, allowing the instruments to move in a loose dialogue. The interplay relies on immediate reaction rather than a written score, trading a tight groove for unpredictable solo segments.
This detour reflects the quartet’s focus on live feel, tracking the performance within Atlantis Studio in Stockholm. Moving beyond their 2025 debut album, the band uses this open-ended jam to expand their jazz-rock fusion catalog. The track refuses a neat return to the opening bass theme, letting the free-form instrumentation run to its natural limit. The final drum notes scatter across an unmetered space.