One plays keys like a God and the other plays drums like an Animal.
Danish Morten Schantz (synth+vocals) and Swedish-Norwegian Anton Eger (drums) are well- known names on the jazz and fusion scenes around the world. For many years now, and
as parts of different crews, they’ve been taking
the jazz logic hardwired in their brains and applying it to all sorts of new and unconventional places.
RKDIA might be their most explosive formular yet.This is the mind of jazz sprawled onto pop retro-futurism.
With RKDIA, they come together in a burst of color and rhythm. Armed with technical brilliance and a penchant for the epic, the duo spin up forceful and hypnotic works that inject the free kinetic of jazz into synth-based electronica and cascading power pop. It’s a sound of its own. One minute it goes to the body in pulsating blows like house music. The next, it envelops you in warm- blooded synth-pop pathos. The improvisational grip runs deep through the tracks. It’s the sound of musical DNA fragments being dissolved and re-configured in real-time. Something that probably needs to be heard – preferably live.
RKDIA (pron.Arcadia) means utopia.Through the ‘National Anthem of Utopia’ found on the album, you’ll get an invitation into the now manifested utopian land of Cockaigne – a land where everything is possible.
With their tribute single to the notorious Roger Federer: ‘Federer Happier’ they deliver a *hands in the air* tune leaving one breathless but comforted all at once. Not to mention the third single ‘Iris’ which represents the most pop sound from RKDIA on the album. It's a song that
showcases Morten and Anton’s love of a good pop melody. With Anton’s unpredictable and truly inspiring, almost melodic drums and glitchy percussion, it lets ‘Iris’ arise into the unsudden, accompanied by Morten’s, foremost, bleepy arpeggiated chords supplemented by his vocals with a twist of the vocoder.
Honorable mentions amongst the numerous original tracks within the album are firstly ‘Lucid Dreamer’. An unconstrained, four-minute instrumental that feels like an extended snapshot of a single moment in time, the melodies unpacking and re-packing themselves over and over. Secondly is yet another pumping, uplifting, and driving club track ‘Shelter’ that makes you go bonkers as if you were at a nightclub.
Take yourself on a journey ‘Into’, ‘Thru’ and ‘Out Of ’ the world of RKDIA with an album filled to the rim with originals.
For a band of two, they make a hell of a roar on that stage.The music shimmers and sparks but it’s also layered - a zone of both blazing intensity and starry-eyed beauty, spun up between these boisterous nerds of instrument whose stories you can read on the next page.
Morten Schantz
“Schantz is able to embrace a carefully constructed dramaturgy that often explodes in melodic hooks that are so grand that they would fit a stadium”. As described by All About Jazz.
Born 1980 in Aarhus, Denmark, is an acclaimed pianist, singer, composer and bandleader whose works include JazzKamikaze (together with Anton) as well as numerous solo projects such as Morten Schantz Godspeed/Trio/Unicorn/Paramount/Segment.
Through the years Schantz has distilled a unique voice that encompass elements from jazz, pop, electronica as well as classical music.
After completing his Advanced Post Graduate Soloist diploma at the RMC he has also worked with classical ensembles mixing his trademark compositional tools with strong contrapuntal techniques.
Anton Eger
“possibly the craziest drummer, visually, this side of The Muppets’ Animal... and while capable of some wild and crazy playing, he’s equally adept at contributing delicate textures, softer timbres and gentler pulses.” As described by All About Jazz.
Drummer Anton Eger is born in Oslo, Norway but grew up in Romania,Venezuela and Sweden whereafter he moved to Copenhagen, Denmark and spent five years studying at The Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen between 2003-2008.
Anton worked his way from teenage punk bands to serving as a military drummer in His Majesty’s King’s Guard in Norway, finally finding a home in the rhythmic complexity of jazz.
He has toured the world performing both contemporary jazz and stadium rock and is a member of acclaimed Anglo-Scandinavian trio Phronesis and is also playing and co-producing for Norwegian saxophone star Marius Neset’s group.
In 2019 he was awarded by the Danish Arts Foundation for his debut album “Æ” and in 2020 he received a ‘Danish Grammy’ for jazz musician of the year.
