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Yelena Eckemoff: Nocturnal Animals
by Tyran Grillo
There is something quietly revelatory about music that chooses the night not as a backdrop but as a mode of thought. With Nocturnal Animals, pianist and composer Yelena Eckemoff enters this liminal terrain with rare attentiveness, offering an album that does not describe animals so much as think alongside them. This is music that crouches, listens, waits, and then moves with purpose. For this journey, Eckemoff has assembled a dream team within a discography already rich with inspired ...
Continue ReadingYelena Eckemoff: Nocturnal Animals
by Mark Sullivan
Pianist-composer Yelena Eckemoff is predictably unpredictable. After an early series of piano trio albums she worked with larger ensembles, culminating in the sextet (plus vocalists) of Better Than Gold And Silver (L&H, 2018). After cutting back to a duet with drummer Manu Katché on Colors (L&H, 2019) she returns with a larger band, but with a difference; this is a quartet with double bassist Arild Andersen (her longest collaborator), and drummer/percussionists Jon Christensen and Thomas Strønen. It may ...
Continue ReadingYelena Eckemoff: Nocturnal Animals
by Dan McClenaghan
"You're busy appearing or you're busy disappearing." Drummer-bandleader Art Blakey may have said that; if he didn't, he should have. Somebody had to express the importance of presenting your work, for getting it out there to an audience. This goes for virtually any artist in any medium. Double down on that for people who create jazz. Pianist Yelena Eckemoff rolls with the “busy appearing" concept. She is prolific; since her debut recording , Cold Sun (L & H, ...
Continue ReadingThomas Strønen: Lucus
by Neri Pollastri
A due anni di distanza dall'omonimo disco, torna Time Is a Blid Guide, la singolare formazione del batterista norvegese Thomas Strønen. Rispetto a quel primo lavoro c'è qualche variazione nell'organico, frutto del lavoro fatto assieme dal vivo: mancano i due percussionisti che affiancavano la batteria del leader e al pianoforte ha preso posto la giapponese Ayumi Tanaka. Il risultato è da un lato un ulteriore passo verso le atmosfere cameristiche già avvicinate nel primo disco, dall'altro il marcato ...
Continue ReadingThomas Strønen: Sense of Time
by AAJ Staff
Time Is a Blind Guide, the ensemble led by Norwegian drummer and composer Thomas Stronen, has just released its sophomore record Lucus (ECM), three years after its eponymous debut album. With Ayumi Tanaka on piano, Håkon Aase on violin, Lucy Railton on cello and Ole Morten Vågan on double bass, Strønen has built a chamber-like ensemble that enables him to explore the details of his soundscape while keeping the music as open as possible. The mood is quiet ...
Continue ReadingThomas Stronen: Lucus
by Don Phipps
With Lucus, the reflective, somber, and gentle timbres of composer/drummer Thomas Strønen and his ensemble, Time Is a Blind Guide, brings to mind poet T.S. Eliot's line, “Winter kept us warm." And even as the cold Norwegian waves rise up or lap gently against the rocks along this craggy musical shore, Lucus elicits warmth, like a crackling fire on an windswept icy day. There's a chamber appeal to this music. That's only natural given the use of the ...
Continue ReadingIl senso del tempo di Thomas Strønen
by AAJ Staff
Dopo l'omonimo disco del 2015, l'ensemble Time Is a Blind Guide guidata dal batterista e compositore norvegese Thomas Stronen pubblica in questi giorni un nuovo, bellissimo, lavoro, Lucus. Con Strønen troviamo Ayumi Tanaka al pianoforte, Håkon Aase al violino, Lucy Railton al violoncello e Ole Morten Vågan al contrabbasso, un assetto decisamente “cameristico," che consente alla scrittura del leader di esplorare un grande numero di dettagli e di mantenere la musica aperta in molte direzioni. Il ...
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