Nils Økland is around long enough to mark his presence on the European and worldwide music scenes. That is for many reasons but two most distinguished are: his instrument, Hardanger fiddle, which of he is the true virtuoso. And his remarkable approach which makes his music immediately recognisable to those who experienced that sound even just one time.

I could compare him in that regard comfortably to Matthias Loibner, sensational Hurdy Gurdy performer whom I reviewed here earlier.

Nils also plays a violin and viola D’Amour with an equally skilful way, but what really matters here is his musical imagination which goes far beyond the folk music he is usually identified with. One doesn’t need to know at all about his classical music experience or roots to trace that pace and the Baroque harmony in his music.

Lynsing had been recorded with the same group which made 2015 ECM’s Kjølvatn project. More of that, it was even recorded in the same Østre Toten stone church for its specific sense of ambience and the acoustics which such a venue offers. It is clear then that carrying on with the musicians and space well acknowledged it can only bring all to another level. In case of top class performers that this band represents.

An opening Drøm is a wonderfully open and dreamy folk tune. It is fresh and clear like a first breath of the fresh air through the just open window at the early morning, when a fog still hides the view, but life coruscate already with the full glam in your wide-open eyes.

Following Lynsing is even more dance and full of melancholy and devotion for the beauty outside or inside, doesn’t matter, it is a worship that one can sense in every note coming.

Flukt, brings the break to this idyllic landscape. With Mats Eilertsen gentle Bass walk counting the tune and the lament of the fiddle it goes up to the climax to decay gently and fades into silence.

Skygger is my favourite here, but the choice is tough as they are all beautiful and each one holds its own strength. It is here when the reverb of the church adds to the performance vastly. Each note has a different pace. It all breaths like a life organism rather that sounds like one the sound. So organic that it merges with the thoughts in your head and turns into one contemplation.

Blámyr continues in the same mood exploring the Depth even deeper, but it reminds me more the admiration I remember from the Saint Colombe’s music. It is full of loftiness which brings back to my memories wonderful landscapes from congenial Alain Caorneau movie Tous les matins du Monde brilliantly framed with French Baroque music performed by Jordi Savall and his Hysperion XX super star group. The music one can listen to the end of the world and one day more.

I would be nothing but barbarian if I would have stolen from you the joy of discovering this music for yourself. Every note, every line is like healing nectar here. Pure essence of the shire beauty. Immerse yourself in it deeply, open your eras wide and just breath. Breath deep and smile.

HUBRO PR:

Lysning SOUNDCLOUD:

When I first time heard about this new Trio recording from Tom himself I was all ears. Especially given the fact that it constituted itself from a long-time collaboration in a Duo that the trumpeter made with the pianist Richard Fairhurst. Those recordings made for London based Babel records in different Duo constellations are to me sort of Tom’s benchmarks, showing his incredible ability to communicate with the hugely reduced expression dictionary, dealing with reduced scale and keep focused artistic communication in the centre of the funnel.

Here they expanded to trio and picking the Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari for the job was a perfect choice, again showing Arthurs’ sublime sensitivity for getting the right collaborators for his projects. The way he plays and can be heard on the numerous ECM recordings shows his ability to frame perfectly every project without going up front or showing off his own ego. Listen to some albums of Nils Petter Molvaer, Trygve Seim,Tomasz Stanko or Arve Henriksen with his drumming and you immediately understand what I mean.

Tom’s artistic inspirations varies from poetry, like mentioned above Duo on Postcars from Pushkin to strictly cinematic inspirations, like on another brilliant one on Vaucanson’s Muse which always brings to my eyes pictures from Tornatorre’s The Legend 1900 and The Love theme written by unrivalled Nino Rota.

Here we have six sketches which came a long way to their current shape. All beautifully executed and audibly mastered. Opening Evergreens has that open simplicity of the folk tune which is expressed wonderfully with trumpeter’s opening rubato. Pianist response equally gentle and sensitive comes on pair with drummer’s approach so inner tuned that they almost sound like a single voice. The harmony builds on careful listening and the act is mastered to the boarder of the tension which is deeply touching with its crystalline openness and the fragile repetitive structure with twisted timing counted by piano driving this delicate tissue.

Pyörähdellen is a perfect example of such a motion alike approach. It starts so slow than one might think after first pause that it was just an interlude, then from that point it climbs like an ivy on the fantastic construction that percussionist supplies. Around that piano starts to take over and soon the rhythm becomes romantic melody in almost Jarrett’esque style. Conversation with trumpet here then blossoms into the full climax painted with Tom’s long notes with gentle hardly noticeable vibrato.

Liepnitz in Ruhe is Tom’s weaving cloudy landscapes with long notes, slowly reaching amplitude, probably the most illustrative piece here, with both pianist and drummer following the leader’s phrase with almost intuitive feeling. I love this bit madly and can listen to it forever.

Coming after Verklöstert is pure tour the force of Ounaskari’s architectural skills and three-dimensional finesse. His drumming makes a drama here in Marilin Mazur’s panoramic landscape brushing alike style and honestly makes a piece alone. Tom’s gentle lines counterpointed by piano are sounding relaxed and dreamy like Dave Douglas’s trumpet on Charm of the Night Sky, the recording of the compelling beauty.

I bought that one from the past for the reason as once One Year/Song approaches the similarity becomes even more irresistible. Trumpet lines are coming on the drumming cannonade like a lament. Voice is so meaning and captivating that it still stays in your head even if the band is already in the middle of the repetitive chorus.

I would call that recording simply Epic

This utterly charming and heart-warming solo piano recording of an Australian pianist Paul Hankinson became a hit of the last Xmas sale madness. It literally sold out in one day not just because of over 10 years of the artist’s Berlin residency, but due to simply irresistible beauty of the music itself.

It is inspired by Schubert’s music, but despite the title just two pieces are drawing from the famous Winterreise cycle. Closing Gute Nacht and the preceding: Komm mit Mir, using a line from the final Leierman song as a leitmotif. Otherwise it is more like variation on the mood that an interpretation of Schubert’s masterpiece per say. At least I can feel it this way.

This music takes over you and keep pampering you in a time capsule. Literally time stops and the pace of the music and a decay of chords keeps building the cocoon up. An amplitude makes your pulse slowing down in the natural way and almost “forces you” to relax, calm down and look around. With this deliberately delivered perspective you keep watching the life around and it looks like the silly rad race to you. That reflection hits your inner-self in the way that you start questioning yourself what the hell really matters in life?

In many regards the feeling that Paul’s Winter Journey brings is close to what Glass’ Metamorphosis does. It kind of twists the time, changes the sense of the intervals. Makes new meaning for the Silence. And looping your memories library into the internal slide projection.

Therapeutic and completely incapacitating. The Luxury which, despite of whatever the success definition is for you, hardly few can afford with days passing by like they do in our daily Dance Macabre steps. Therefore, this reflection and time for daily musing, are simply necessary. For the sense of balance, for the mental hygiene, for the sense of the self-identity. No one can disagree.

That alone might be the best explanation for this massive success. Sure, that the time was right and a hunger for peace massive at the time it went out, but these are just circumstances. There are always some, better or worse, doesn’t matter – the life will always adjust itself to it.

What really matters is the power that this music possesses. Without that factor it wouldn’t move anyone. Wouldn’t touch any soul. It would just fade into nothingness like an ad jingle, the buzzing of a mosquito or any other irritating sound as lots of them every day’s life serves.

So, treat yourself and plunge into it. And enjoy that someone’s imagination brings such some pearls to life, from time to time.

TRAUMTON PR

You can buy this music here.

SOUNDCLOUD SAMPLE.

I would like highly recommend reading artist’s own reflection about that music which makes a perfect preface to the listening as well as showing incredible sources for inspiration and here in that text also very unique sense of humour. Enjoy both an intro and the music.

This collection of soundscapes comes from the prominent group of Norwegian musicians who are around long time and,despite of sometimes still young age, they already made their names worldwide. Musicians like Sidsel Endresen, Eivind Aarset, Arve Henriksen, Stian Westerhus and many others, including recently reviewed Erland Dahlen.

All of them are very strong personalities with immediately recognizable style and voice. Like A. Henriksen for example. Due to his trumpet, the mood present on tracks like the Unrest and the Remain are both full of melancholy and the restlessly touching.

Rodach is not an artist who comes to the studio on the regular basis. Therefore, this is the first comeback for 8 years. Also, he is usually a solo player making his own samples and loops. Here we’ve got a little difference with the drummer involved in 4 out of 18 tracks (Max Bendel) as well as a guest appearance on piano from Wolfgang Loos, the recording wizard behind the consoles there in the Traumton label.

His instrument of choice is usually guitar. He likes it, as he describes it, for its imperfection.

Now when you look at the title it is a philosophical attendance. So was his last one entitled Our Situation Seems Strange. As his daily bread is delivering music for theatrical or cinematic needs it has to be more or less illustrative. That’s the main factor characterizing it.

Preface to this session points numerous descriptions of the nature of the time and referrals to the circularity of the nature of the time and its repetitive patterns, which seems to be circular too if simple analogy with the dials is used. My feeling is that one can bend an imagination into any direction as far as his fantasy and open mind allows, but let’s stick to the instructions and the music.

Opening track (Uji) is already very cinematic indeed. The time counting and the audible dissonances and delays are bringing imagination of the spaghetti western soundtracks as the best we know from Ennio Morricone. Counting percussive patterns looped to repeat themselves are even more tightening imagination to the passing time.

Following, Here Now, is clear blues guitar reef, stacked in time and counted with the regular beat. It only lasts 1:45. Scratch coming after describes well the nature of the distortion that the guitar has been given. Multiple guitar tracks are talking to each other here. It is another miniature. Bluesy spirit of the guitar stays present, but this time long-lasting chords are more Knopfler-like with the hint of the bottleneck’s taste. With the monotony counted rhythm coming from the piano.

Another one in the meantime, brings me memory of another cinematic icon: Ray Cooder’s Paris -Texas. Examples like those can be spotted almost all the time. From that regard there is a certain eclecticism in this music which grows over the listener depends on his personal experience and ability to trace and recognise those influences, what is quite a good fun itself.

Multiple pieces coming after are containing varied connotations with the guitar styles we already know and heard before. Variety of the patterns are simply showing Rodach’s skills in adopting, transforming and incorporating different surrendering landscapes into his very own musical universe and language. One remains for certain: the strong felling of circularity coming from multiple repetition and the rhythmic structure of the compositions. However, if it’s because the Time is Round or the Musicians are Drunk I don’t know. Whatever the reason I enjoyed the journey and the dark signature imprinted into this music.

TRAUMTON PR

You can buy this music here…

Rodach SOUNDCLOUD

It is not my first meeting with Erika Stucky, crazy Swiss artist and stage performer with her origins rooting in the US, planet Earth and imagination from Mars. Therefore, I was kind of prepared that what comes will be unique. As I previously reviewed her Suicidal Yodels and the Black Widow recordings as well as Live I was pretty aware of her surprising possibilities and the vocal arsenal. This incredible cooperation however again took me by the surprise.

But no one could really expect that she will team up together this time with the prominent celebrity countertenor Andreas Scholl and the Baroque Ensemble (La Cetra Barockorchester). To spice it up even more, add FM Einheit to the pack, the drummer and the creative force behind famous German band Einstúrzende Neubauten.,

And no one could guess what it is all going to be about. This is however about Erika’s father, hence a Spanish tittle Pepito. As it refers to her early childhood memories and needs more explanation it is better to read what PR says about to gain as much preparation as possible. Blended with quirky sense of humour and shocking graphic design for the digi-pack layout, referring to her deceased father’s live making profession: the butchery.

Repertoire as always with Erika contains her own compositions and covers, on that occasion it is choice of Cole Porter, Billie Holiday, Luccio Dala and Steven Sondheim among the others. Songs referring to difficult relations, or mental troubles. Songs which used to be around when she was growing. Maybe songs she had been listening to with her father, or she remembers him listening to them. Whatever the reason they fulfil the emotional pallet of romance, grand sentiments, simply joys or sometimes great disappointments. In short: all the life has to offer.

Now it all gets down to the arrangements and the performance path she decided to go with to complete that program. And believe me she could do whatever she would like to do with it. But she kept it simple. Brilliant and without overdoing. With well-balanced use of the quest musicians.

Starting with Porter’s Ev’ry Time We Say Good Bye she set up the sentimental mood for the set. Baroque strings, used to play different sounds daily, approach the subjects with an incredible fullness and richness of the sound. Her singing, sweet and luscious, counterpointed with it nicely. And her “trombone solo”, one of those amazing things she can make with her voice refereed to the classic ballroom tradition.

Randy Newman’s Marie, again, sung with the great intensity came together wonderfully with orchestra sounding both baroque and romantic in the same time. It was sung in the way that Tom Waits would probably do that.

But the cherry of the pie are obviously duets with Scholl here. Like one in Lil’ Sister, where they both create gentle harmony in almost non-existing canon is splendid. The call and response in Two for Tea is a final pick, where Scholl sings with an incredible clarity and Stucky with almost laconic naivety. When She tries her “brassy” tricks in choruses, He comes in response with slightly nasal vibrato reminding Louis Armstrong’s manner.

Stucky’s own Stacheldracht (Barbwire) with strings merged with percussion dissonance brings to the surface FM Einheit’s contribution in most visible way. Here reminiscences to her father are hitting the surface too. They have emotional tension which is hard to omit but somehow songs from the musicals are holding emotional deposit in the better way for me.

I could go for all of them one by one but it is not the point. Everyone should do so for himself and feel it. This is the music to FEEL more than to listen. It is very private and very exhibitionist in the same time. It contains huge deposit of emotions and layers of beauty and touch-ability which must be soaked by an open heart and mind. The beauty which takes over you in most natural way.

PEPITO TRAUMTON PR

you can buy this music here:

CDs: Traumton Recordstore
Downloads: Traumton Downloadshop

Containing 6 tracks percussion journey into Dahlen’s imagination brings manifold cinematic memories to my mind. Music is very imaginative and spacious. Soundstage is simply epic. This are all big scores like sonic landscapes reminding works of the biggest names working for the movie industry. Like Hans Zimmer or Ryuichi Sakamoto. Or Antonio Sanchez to bring it more to the jazz drumming territory.

But the drumming is very propulsive as well, so it refers to the history of the rock music without a shade of doubts. Music of The Police, Tangerine Dreams, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd or Grateful Dead alike comes to my head as a first impression.

Another subject worth mentioning is an extended range of instruments which had been used for making this sounds. Not just a drums and bells and all sort of percussion instruments, but also cutlery, strings and all sort of electronics to mix and loop it with at the end. Even Drone boxes, to jump out of usual approach completely. All that shows an incredible creativity and imagination and the frameworks he created and taking us indeed into multiply mental departures. Sort of things which I first time experienced from another percussionist wizard – Terje Isungset.

An opening Clocks, with gentle techno bit and ticking sounds of clocks and gongs reminds a bit a psychotic trip of Dark Side of the Moon that Floyds took us once to. But the tension brings even more dark feelings and multicultural images which are travelling through your head are revering to early period of Gong music, a bit like on Camembert Electrique with drumming pattern reminding a bit Dire Straits. I can see the crops from movies like Solaris, 5th Element or Delicatessen, humour wise. So, you got a picture now, I believe.

The Glas, coming after is Insugset’s universe. Short , but very rich ,spacious and dynamically extended, with this feeling of coldness coming from the upper transients of the percussion sounds.

Ship, Is almost like a tribute to the Gong’s Gazeuse with very rich tissue reminding me the best from Pierre Moerlen. But with this electronic plankton characteristic for the overall sound of CAN from the period of 70-ties and 80-ies, listen to the Tago Mago album, or to the Rite Time and you would feel it immediately. One can tell the music he grown on listening to.

Following two with the titles illustrating animals, the Bear and the Lizard I like to see as a portrait of the creatures themselves. In the first one monumental stepping power of the rhythm describes the rough power of the animal, with its ruthless sense of self confidence. Dynamic range makes this walk incredibly three-dimensional and almost touchable like a hologram.

On the other pole, we are getting repetitive pattern camouflaging the real nature of the sonic wave which gets twisted and modulated under the surface. Kind of weirdness which makes an easy natural association with a reptilian sort of nature. Some might however see completely different pictures there. Easy to understand if listened with no suggestion coming from the title.

That’s exactly the power of that music. One keeps reading in it like in an open book and never gets enough. Therefore, I am leaving closing Wood composition for your very own recognition.

These nine tracks are a joy to my heart and I can tell you right from the beginning that it is to me one of the best recordings I’ve heard this year.  As a debut, it is simply mind-blowing and equally addicting like last year’s Florian Favre one or Fabienne Ambühl’s two years ago. Why those two, you might ask, amount the hundred others. Simply due to its spiritual quality.

Kasia is one of those musicians who are down to the Earth honest. They bring you their heart in their hand. All nine compositions are coming from the band. Six of them sound to me like proper scores developed in a process. During playing and listening to each other for long. Three others, called Episodes are representing kind of suite to me, where every musician in the trio gets his own space to express himself and make a kind of signature. An order on the recording makes perfect sense when interludes are establishing a pace of the recording when placed between the tracks being played by the whole trio.

Episode 1 belongs to the drummer Piotr Budniak. It is a wonderful percussive framework, build with very subtle tissue. Changing tempos and the minimalistic approach on drums and rides are contrasting each other and bringing such an organic feeling to the table.

The piece called Passaic Avenue makes a perfect example to describe Kasia’s approach. It sounds a bit like Esbjörn Svennson, who’s emotional touch is audible in her play and a little bit Komeda like, with its folk sounding repetitive lines, bringing that unmistakable touch of Polish Romanticism. Kasia walks and watches. Music delivers in her head due to the feelings. She is like a painter. She is communicating with pictures. Every tune speaks its own story. Story she felt before she forged that into the sounds.

Take the Green Eyes which are Grey, another so much personal and intimate deeply emotional piece of music which makes listener almost feeling like a trespasser. But this is nothing else like this absolute emotional transparency she shares with an audience which is her best weapon of choice and makes her voice standing out of the crowd.

Episode 2, lovely balanced bass walk, just like the drummer’s one, scopes massively from the contrast of tension and straight forwardness of the woody tone of the instrument. It is almost dreamy in its feeling. It comes to the end just when one starts to fall in love with. It is like unveiled promise. So, light and ephemeral. Not the feeling that one usual gets from the double bass. And it had not been played in a cello register either.

Intimacy starting with wonderful drummer’s intro is my absolute favourite of that forthright stories. It comes like a storm. First with a gentle tension of the percussive rhythms and accents, then joined with the full piano blow and, staying in the conversation with, bass. It is not about the volume here as title would clearly suggest, but about the intensity of the communication inside the piece. Culmination comes as a natural climax build on the spark of emotions which all the band is melting in that pot with equal intensity.

Kasia’s own Episode 3 is based on the silence between the notes. Tension and reverb are what makes that music, which is the darkest sounding one on the record. Intensity and the emotional feeling present there are reminding me my always beloved Mal Waldron. Such a joy to hear his spirit in her gentle feminine touch.

Long story short I admire her mature approach and the way she listens to her instincts and the inner voice. It is especially surprising given her young age. But as I said above, her lack of mannerism and complete openness to what comes are her greatest strengths. I am keeping that record close to the heart where it belongs and waiting impatiently for more to come from this incredibly sensitive young artist. I feel delighted and privileged for being trusted to come across those recording and being able to Harold it to you Ladies and Gentleman.

KASIA PIETRZKO on SOUNDCLOUD