For Stockholm multi-instrumentalist Tomas Hallonsten versatility, curiosity, and collaboration have been the keywords in a musical career stretching back more than two-and-a-half decades. While rooted in jazz and thriving on improvisation, he’s applied his deep musicality to countless, wildly disparate contexts. Across this dizzying array of milieus certain things have been constant: “I’m on a life-long ‘quest’, searching for a perfect combination of sounds. This has been going on for twentysomething years now, since I bought my first analogue synth, the Korg MS-20 in the 90’s.”

Although he’s never put down the trumpet—the instrument he was initially trained on, and which he’s used in fiery free jazz combos like Exploding Customer—early on Hallonsten’s sonic imagination couldn’t be contained by a single horn. In experimental pop-flavored projects like Tape and Time is a Mountain, a pair of related trios with bassist Johan Berthling, and countless studio sessions for artists as diverse as Mariam the Believer, Frida Hyvönen, and Nicolai Dunger, he’s a selfless musician who nonchalantly brings whatever an individual project requires, regardless of instrument.