THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After a six-year break, The Young Mothers returns with their long-awaited third album. The band started when Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten moved to Austin, TX in 2009. Upon meeting an incredibly diverse music scene in Texas, he was inspired to form a band that would bring together all the different things he was hearing.
He saw a potential for combining his own background in jazz and improvised music with experimental rock, hip-hop, electronic music, and all the things that exist in the crossover between these expressions, a playful mix that often had a cinematic flair. The Young Mothers were born, and for the first five years the band only played live, and built a reputation for being an exciting act you needed to see. In 2014 their debut album A Mothers Work Is Ever Done showed that the live excitement could also be extended into the recording studio. More touring followed and the second album Morose followed in 2018.
A lot of things happened between 2018 and 2024, not just the lockdown, but also Håker Flaten relocating from Austin to his native Norway. After numerous setbacks in 2022 the band finally got together again and recorded what is now ready as their third album: Better If You Let It. The music is unmistakably still The Young Mothers — fans will not be disappointed — but the band now shares the writing credits, a collective approach which makes for an even more diverse and wide palette of material. Better If You Let It” is one of those albums that keeps you on your toes throughout, you never guess where the music goes next, yet upon repeated listening there clearly is a logic at work, these are not random juxtapositions, and the more time you spend with it the more it grows on you, and there is soon no doubt that Better If You Let It is The Young Mothers’ finest albums to date.
The lineup for the album is Jawwaad Taylor (trumpet / rhymes / electronics and programming), Jason Jackson (tenor and baritone sax), Stefan Gonzalez (vibraphone / drums / percussion and voice), Jonathan F. Horne (guitar), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (acoustic and electric bass) and Frank Rosaly (drums / electronics and programming). The album was produced by Håker Flaten and the band, recorded late 2022 by Christian Engfelt at Studio Paradiso in Oslo, and will be released on Håker Flaten’s own Sonic Transmission Records.”
