A Swedish jazz trio called Spaces has drawn a review from Dagens Nyheter, which published its assessment of the group's music on Thursday. The review, written by Magnus Säll, describes the trio's sound as moving between two very different registers. According to Dagens Nyheter, Spaces shifts from restrained, watercolor-like touches on white paper to wild, rumbling skies painted in oil, in a reference to the Swedish writer August Strindberg.
That contrast sits at the center of the newspaper's account. Dagens Nyheter frames the trio's work as an adventure, and the review's headline calls it fascinating. The description offered by Säll is built on painterly images rather than technical musical analysis, presenting Spaces as a group whose output can be quiet and sparse in one moment and forceful and dark in the next.
Why it matters
Coverage in a major Swedish daily gives a jazz trio a level of visibility that goes beyond the genre's usual audience. Dagens Nyheter is one of Sweden's leading newspapers, and a review in its culture pages places Spaces in front of readers who may not follow jazz closely.
The review also matters for how it characterizes the music. By comparing the trio's quieter passages to watercolor marks on a blank page and its louder ones to heavy, brooding oil paintings, Dagens Nyheter positions Spaces as a group working across a wide emotional and dynamic range rather than settling into a single mood. That framing is the substance of the paper's praise.
A trio described through painterly contrasts
The central image in Dagens Nyheter's review is one of extremes held together in a single body of work. On one side, Säll describes discrete watercolor splashes on white paper — a way of suggesting music that is light, spare and carefully placed. On the other, he describes wild, rumbling Strindberg skies in oil, evoking something heavier, darker and more turbulent.
The reference to Strindberg carries its own weight in a Swedish context. August Strindberg is one of the country's most significant writers and painters, and his landscapes are known for turbulent skies and charged atmospheres. Invoking that imagery gives readers a frame for the intensity Dagens Nyheter hears in parts of Spaces' music.
What the review does not do is break the trio's sound down into individual players, specific tracks or recording details. Dagens Nyheter's account stays at the level of overall impression, and that impression is one of range: a group equally at home in understatement and in force.
The word the paper uses for the experience is adventure. That choice suggests music that unfolds over time rather than arriving fully formed, and it suggests a listener being taken somewhere rather than simply entertained. Dagens Nyheter presents Spaces as a group worth following through that journey.
What the review says about jazz coverage in Sweden
Reviews of this kind play a role in how jazz reaches listeners in Sweden. A notice in a national daily can direct attention to a trio that might otherwise circulate mainly among dedicated fans of the genre. Dagens Nyheter's decision to review Spaces, and to describe the music in such vivid terms, puts the group in a broader cultural conversation.
The review's approach is also notable for what it assumes of its readers. It leans on visual art and literature — watercolor, oil paint, Strindberg — rather than on musical terminology. That choice makes the piece accessible to readers who may not know the vocabulary of jazz criticism, while still conveying a clear sense of what makes the trio distinctive.
For a genre that often depends on word of mouth and specialist outlets, that kind of mainstream attention can matter. Dagens Nyheter's readers encounter Spaces not as a niche act but as a group whose music rewards close listening.
What to watch
Spaces now has a national newspaper's description of its music on the record. Listeners who want to judge the watercolor-and-oil comparison for themselves can seek out the trio's work, and the review gives them a clear set of expectations to test against what they hear.
