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Ever since Esbjörn Svensson s untimely death, fans have been longing for access to archival material and s. With 301, they get a full album of previously unreleased original music! Review ------ Original, absorbing, and dynamic. --JazzWise The Swedish piano trio at its most thrillingly effective. --The Independent A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo The Swedish piano trio at its most thrillingly effective. --The Independent A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo Posthumous releases aren't anything new in jazz, but there's something particularly poignant about the recent release from Sweden's Esbjörn Svensson Trio (or E.S.T. for short). Culled from nine hours of music recorded just before the accidental death of pianist Esbjörn Svensson at 44 years old in 2008, 301 named for the group's studio) is probably the final statement this trio will get to make, a reality made all the more poignant by being such an engrossing listen. With a little luck, however, this will be the album to raise the trio's profile in the U.S., even if it comes a few years too late. Something of the Scandinavian equivalent of a meeting between the Bad Plus and the Brad Mehldau Trio, E.S.T. earned a following in Europe by mixing up the formula for what and where a jazz trio could play. Informed by a panoply of influences that included hip-hop, classical, pop and electronic music, E.S.T. landed on MTV Scandinavia and collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny in 2003. Pulled from the same marathon sessions that yielded 2008's Leucocyte, 301 was edited by E.S.T.'s surviving members and its sound engineer (all three band members are credited with electronics). After the elegiac opening of Behind the Stars, the evocative Inner City, City Lights features Svensson's contemplative piano feeling out a melody over a hissing rhythmic backdrop, which sounds a little like an icy radio transmission. A two-part mini-suite, Three Falling Free opens with a gentle, unsettled melancholy, but as the song builds it becomes a sprawling funk-shaded anthem charged with driving piano, a near-tribal beat and a churning fuzz guitar effect that could've come out of '90s Manchester, England. The Left Lane and album-closer The Childhood Dream also show E.S.T. as just as agile as an acoustic trio, with the latter sounding delicate enough to have fallen out of Keith Jarrett's catalog. We can only wonder where this trio could have ventured next. By Chris Barton --Los Angeles Times A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo Posthumous releases aren't anything new in jazz, but there's something particularly poignant about the recent release from Sweden's Esbjörn Svensson Trio (or E.S.T. for short). Culled from nine hours of music recorded just before the accidental death of pianist Esbjörn Svensson at 44 years old in 2008, 301 named for the group's studio) is probably the final statement this trio will get to make, a reality made all the more poignant by being such an engrossing listen. With a little luck, however, this will be the album to raise the trio's profile in the U.S., even if it comes a few years too late. Something of the Scandinavian equivalent of a meeting between the Bad Plus and the Brad Mehldau Trio, E.S.T. earned a following in Europe by mixing up the formula for what and where a jazz trio could play. Informed by a panoply of influences that included hip-hop, classical, pop and electronic music, E.S.T. landed on MTV Scandinavia and collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny in 2003. Pulled from the same marathon sessions that yielded 2008's Leucocyte, 301 was edited by E.S.T.'s surviving members and its sound engineer (all three band members are credited with electronics). After the elegiac opening of Behind the Stars, the evocative Inner City, City Lights features Svensson's contemplative piano feeling out a melody over a hissing rhythmic backdrop, which sounds a little like an icy radio transmission. A two-part mini-suite, Three Falling Free opens with a gentle, unsettled melancholy, but as the song builds it becomes a sprawling funk-shaded anthem charged with driving piano, a near-tribal beat and a churning fuzz guitar effect that could've come out of '90s Manchester, England. The Left Lane and album-closer The Childhood Dream also show E.S.T. as just as agile as an acoustic trio, with the latter sounding delicate enough to have fallen out of Keith Jarrett's catalog. We can only wonder where this trio could have ventured next. By Chris Barton --Los Angeles Times A journey of the imagination to quietly change your life. --Mojo