Legendary Scandinavian out-jazz drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, probably best known for his work in The Thing and many collaborations with Peter Brötzmann (including the Chicago Tentet), formed a big band a little over a decade ago. The 11-piece Large Unit included Thomas Johansson on cornet and flugelhorn; Mats Äleklint on trombone; Kasper Værnes on soprano and alto saxophone; Klaus Ellerhusen Holm on alto and baritone saxophone; Børre Mølstad on tuba; Ketil Gutvik on electric guitar; Lasse Marhaug on turntable and electronics; Jon Rune Strøm and Christian Meaas Svendsen on double and electric bass; and Andreas Wildhagen on drums & percussion. They debuted with a 20-minute EP, First Blow, and followed that up less than a year later with a three-CD box (also available as a four-LP set), Erta Ale, both on Nilssen-Love’s own PNL label.

Most of the players were significantly younger than Nilssen-Love, and that was a deliberate choice. I interviewed him in 2017, and he said, “When I began playing with [Large Unit bassist] Jon Rune Strøm, who’s now in the trio of Frode Gjerstad, I was 35, and I realized that was the first time I was playing with someone that was younger than myself. ’Cause I mean, I was 28 when I joined the [Chicago] Tentet and obviously Peter’s 76 now, so I was always the youngest in that band and most of the groups. So then I always had the idea of wanting to start a large group, but I thought maybe I should really include some young musicians and not the regulars like Mats [Gustafsson] or Ken [Vandermark] or Mars Williams.”

Erta Ale was a mixture of studio and live material, with the third disc containing a full set from the 2014 Moers Festival. The two main discs featured paintings by Nilssen-Love’s father Terry as cover art, and the set came with two booklets: one with liner notes by Audun Vinger, and one with photos by Peter Gannushkin. It may seem presumptuous for a band to have put out a box so early in its lifespan, but the Chicago Octet/Tentet did the same thing, with their eponymous 1998 three-disc set on Okka Disk. And like that set, Erta Ale was both subtler and less overwhelming than one might expect.

With a double rhythm section, electric guitar, and legendary noise master Marhaug in the initial lineup, the Large Unit has never been your typical big band, though it has its swinging moments, nor is it a “traditional” large-scale free jazz group in the bombastic, blaring vein of Michael Mantler’s Jazz Composers Orchestra or William Parker’s Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. Indeed, while it’s been at times a raucous and quite noisy unit, with a hard-charging energy reminiscent of Charles Mingus crossed with the Melvins, there are many passages on Erta Ale and later recordings where individual instrumentalists take lengthy and at times quite meditative and exploratory solo turns.

Subsequent releases have included Rio Fun (a single 25-minute track); 2015 (two hours of live recordings packaged with a photo book); Ana (a collaboration with Brazilian musicians); Fluku (which introduced saxophonist Kristoffer Berre Alberts to the lineup); More Fun Please, on which they expanded the lineup to 27 members and changed the name to the Extra Large Unit; EthioBraz, a live team-up with Ethiopian dance/music ensemble Fendika and guitarist Terrie Ex of Dutch punk band the Ex; and the twin 2022 albums New Map and Clusterfuck. Each of these has its own virtues and unique qualities, especially EthioBraz, which is pretty much a dance party.

This week, Nilssen-Love is releasing three Large Unit-related albums simultaneously. Each shows a different side of the group.

Hohai Bushi is a collaboration with Japanese alto saxophonist and free jazz shaman Akira Sakata. Nilssen-Love is a longtime member of Sakata’s group Arashi, alongside bassist Johan Berthling. The Large Unit’s lineup has changed over the years, and on this disc consists of Signe Emmeluth on alto sax and flute; Marthe Lea on tenor sax and flute; Hanne de Backer on baritone sax; Andreas Røysum on bass clarinet and flute; Niklas Barnö on trumpet; Mats Äleklint on trombone; Per Åke Holmlander on tuba; Kalle Moberg on accordion; Ketil Gutvik on electric guitar; Jon Rune Strøm and Christian Meass Svendsen on upright basses (with Svendsen doubling on shakuhachi); Celio de Carvalho on percussion; and Andreas Wildhagen and Nilssen-Love on drums and percussion. All three percussionists are specifically credited with playing Paiste gongs, and indeed at about the nine-minute mark there’s something of a gong interlude happening in the back, as the saxophonists squiggle and squall.

This disc consists of a single 57-minute piece, recorded in a Norwegian church in June 2025. It moves through multiple stages, occasionally returning to a melody based on a traditional Japanese tune. Around 15 minutes in, Sakata begins singing wordlessly as a flute tootles, the horns moan behind him, and the percussionists beat out a rhythm like something you might hear on an Art Ensemble of Chicago or Last Poets record. Eventually, he recites a poem, “What the Dead Man Left Behind” by Shuntaro Tanikawa, in a dramatic, groaning and growling style, and at the very end, he takes an unaccompanied solo of Aylerian beauty. Although the piece has some blaring moments, a lot of it is quiet, even hushed, giving it the feeling of an avant-garde theater piece or some kind of ritual. In person, it must have been utterly captivating, the kind of thing you find yourself holding your breath through, and even on record there’s a great deal of suspense and fascination throughout.

Steam Waterfall is an Extra Large Unit recording from 2022; the lineup on this occasion was Miriam Aasland on flute and piccolo flute; Heidi Sævland on alto sax; Jesse Schilderink on tenor sax; Kristoffer Alberts on tenor and baritone saxes; Eivind Leifsen on Bb clarinet and baritone sax; Klaus Ellerhusen Holm on Eb clarinet and baritone sax; Tuva Victoria Lundberg Olsson on trumpet; Guro Kvåle and Emil Bø on trombones; Magnus Breivik Løvseth, Sondre Ross Folkestad and Per Åke Holmlander on tubas; Maren Sofie Nyland Johansen and Kalle Moberg on accordions; Kristian Enkerud Lien and Ketil Gutvik on acoustic guitars; Børge Brustad on viola; Andrine D. Erdal on cello; Lotte Krüger on harp; Lina Knörr on voice and flute; Christian Meaas Svendsen on bass; Patrycja Wybranczyk, Andreas Wildhagen and Nilssen-Love on drums, percussion, and Paiste gongs; Michael Lee Sørenmo on Korean traditional drums and gongs, hi-hat, and Paiste gongs; and four dancers: Alexander Aarø, Lida Albarracin Søreide, Ana Barragan Lid, and Lina Duque. They’re not audible, but they were there, and Nilssen-Love considers them crucial to the vibe, so their contributions are noted.

The album, which runs more than 75 minutes, is intended to document more than just the music. It begins with the sound of the audience entering the space, where the ensemble’s equipment is set up like installation art. We hear quiet conversations, laughter, and the gentle hiss of cymbals being agitated by battery-powered vibrators (Nilssen-Love explains this in the liner notes). The musicians assemble and the performance begins. Like Hohai Bushi, it is a series of events. One section is composed of trills with low drones underpinning them, like a cross between Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians and Philip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi. Another is a long showcase for Knörr, who vocalizes like she’s got something caught in the back of her throat. (Later, she erupts in Yoko Ono-esque ululations, as the band clatters and blares in classically free jazz fashion behind her.) At almost exactly the halfway mark, all three drummers erupt, some of them striking gongs as the others solo manically. Nearly an hour in, harpist Krüger takes the spotlight, with the string players hovering around her like butterflies. This is a big piece, with various elements dominating at various points; it has as much in common with a modern work for orchestra as it does a big band performance — probably more so, in fact. But it’s paced in such a way that it never overwhelms you.

The final new release is called Small Units: “What Just Happened?” and it lives up to its title. It contains four pieces recorded by subsets of the full ensemble. The first is “5 x 10 (Composition for 5 Drummers)”; the next is “Spread Rain (Composition for 6 Saxophones)”; then we get “Dragespel (Composition for 3 Accordions)”; and finally “Zlang! (Composition for 3 Tubas)”.

This is the shortest of the three CDs, running just 49 minutes, and the least dynamic. “5 x 10” features Dag Erik Knedal Andersen, Ole Mofjell, Nilssen-Love, Jennifer Torrence, and Andreas Wildhagen, and it’s not the greatest opening gesture for an album, as it sounds like they’re warming up for a parade but no actual rhythm ever breaks out; they’re just kind of all doing snare rolls in patterns. Maybe it’s interesting if you’re a drummer yourself, but as a listener it’s not much. “Spread Rain,” with Signe Emmeluth on alto sax, Eivind Leifsen on soprano sax, Marthe Lea and Aksel Ø. Røed on tenor saxes, Hanne de Backer on baritone sax, and Andreas Røysum on bass clarinet, hints at the potential for excitement; the Julius Hemphill Sextet album Fat Man And The Hard Blues provides an example of how six reeds can create exhilarating group music, and there’s some of that feeling here, but there’s also a lot of ultra-quiet hissing and flapping of valves, at least early on, sounding more like something Roscoe Mitchell might have come up with. “Dragespel” allows the three accordionists (Maren Sofie Nyland Johansen, Kalle Moberg, and Mykola Sheremeta) to find the outer limits of their instruments’ expressive capability; there are low drones worthy of pipe organs here, and piercing squeals that sound like microphone feedback. “Zlang!” doesn’t deserve an exclamation mark. After an initial fanfare like they’re announcing a hunt or a military charge, the three tuba players (Sondre Ross Folkestad, Per Åke Holmlander, and Børre Mølstad) go from extended fart noises to bellowing back and forth like angry walruses on seaside rocks.

If I was to rank these from “must-hear” to “meh,” I’d go Hohai Bushi > Steam Waterfall > Small Units: “What Just Happened?” But as a general rule, the Large Unit (and the Extra Large Unit, and its various subgroups and variations) are always worth your time. So start here, and work your way backward. You’ll find it to be time well spent.