Wolf Rune, the first solo recording in Sinikka Langeland’s ECM discography, sheds new light on the multifaceted work of the Norwegian folk singer and kantele player. Few artists embody the spirit of place as resolutely as Sinikka and her songs, compositions, poem settings and arrangements reflect, ...
Genre: Folk
Subgenre: Traditional Folk
Vijay Iyer presents a powerful new trio, in which he is joined by two key figures in creative music, Tyshawn Sorey and Linda May Han Oh. “We have an energy together that is very distinct. It has a different kind of propulsion, a different impulse and a different spectrum of colours”. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
A fresh and open music, delicate and space-conscious, is shaped as drummer Thomas Strønen and Ayumi Tanaka, previously heard in the ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide on Lucus, resurface in a new trio with clarinettist/singer/percussionist Marthe Lea. The group first came together at Oslo’s Royal ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
A fascinating solo album from the Swiss pianist, composer and conceptualist, Entendre offers deeper insight into Nik Bärtsch’s musical thinking, illuminating aspects of his playing and the nature of his modular pieces. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The third volume of the Danish String Quartet’s ongoing Prism series, which shows how the radiance of Bach’s fugues is refracted through Beethoven’s quartets to illuminate the work of later composers. “Beethoven had taken a fundamentally linear development from Bach,” the Danes note, ...
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Recorded live in the Grand Hall of Budapest’s Liszt Academy, Hallgató is an inspired and moving album from Ferenc Snétberger and the Keller Quartett. Hungary’s outstanding acoustic guitarist and its foremost chamber group are heard together and separately, in a programme with compositions by Snétberger, Shostakovich, John Dowland ...
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Classical Crossover
With Uma Elmo, his fifth album as a leader for ECM, Danish guitarist-composer Jakob Bro presents a new trio featuring Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy. Astonishingly, given the trio’s musical synergy, the first time these three musicians ever performed together ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Paolo Fresu from the island of Sardinia, which has its own great vocal tradition, could relate at once to the Corsican music with its “refined and archaic voices”, its mix of contemporary compositions and its attempt to hold fast to “melodies vanishing in the ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
At Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall, Hamburg 1975 (Remastered) (Live)
Reverberations from the Future and the Past: Just recently two brilliant minds of modern jazz celebrated a truly exceptional anniversary. David Liebman, the 1946 born saxophonist from New York and Richie Beirach, one year his junior and a leading exponent of the modern jazz-piano who, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
In its review of pianist Shai Maestro’s ECM leader debut The Dream Thief, All About Jazz spoke of “a searching lyrical atmosphere, emotional eloquence and communal virtuosity that serves the music.” All of which also applies to Human, where Maestro’s outgoing, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The debut album of Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry was one of 2019’s most talked-about releases. The trio’s musical concept – the Boston Globe spoke of “utterances of hushed assurance, lyricism and suspense” - is taken to the next level on its second album, Garden of ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions
Symphonic Solo Experience: This album could easily have turned top-heavy. After all, here's a record which, in just under 40 minutes, covers anything from arabic scales to Japanese sounds, from free jazz references to concepts by Kari Ikonen's favourite painter Vasiliy ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
How we define the age we live in depends entirely on the frame we choose to view it through. On one timescale we’re just getting settled into the 21st century; zoom out and we’re deeply entrenched in the Anthropocene. We might be waking to the dawn of an enlightened, interconnected new era or teetering ...
Genre: Electronic
Subgenre: Ambient
Lost Prayers is the first of Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür’s New Series recordings to be devoted entirely to his chamber music. Scaled-back instrumental forces, however, are no indicator of reduced expressive power, and the volatility of Tüür’s concept emerges forcefully from the first seconds of Fata Morgana which is, with Lichttürme, ...
Composer: Erkki-Sven Tüür
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Elina Duni and Rob Luft’s programme of songs of love and exile has been gathering momentum since 2017, when the Albanian-Swiss singer and the British guitarist began their collaboration. Along the way the duo has been augmented by distinguished guests, with Swiss flugelhornist Matthieu Michel and UK pianist/percussionist Fred Thomas ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Conceived jointly by violinist Movses Pogossian and violist Kim Kashkashian on the occasion of Tigran Mansurian’s 80th birthday, the Con anima project brings together a dedicated cast of players to perform the Armenian composer’s chamber music. The emphasis is on newer pieces - only the Third String Quartet ...
Composer: Tigran Mansurian (1939)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
The critically acclaimed duo made their debut in 2018 with the album Last things on Oslo Session Recordings, which received international praise. This is the duo's second album. Since their debut they've had the chance to develop their collaboration as songwriters and performers through extensive ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
An album of soliloquies from the master. After highly acclaimed albums in formations from duo and trio to family band and orchestra, here is the great Argentinean bandoneon player Dino Saluzzi in his first purely solo recording in more than 30 years. (The early solo albums Kultrum and Andina established ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Budapest Concert is the second complete show to be issued from Keith Jarrett’s 2016 European tour, recorded two weeks earlier than the widely-acclaimed concert released as Munich 2016. The new double album documents the pianist’s solo performance at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest. ...
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
While Sorcery was not Jack DeJohnette’s first appearance on record under his own name, it did mark a major step in his career, from first-call sideman to working bandleader. Both the mix of material (full of freedom, structure, electricity, and humor), the personnel, and DeJohnette’s own multifaceted role as ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Avantgarde Jazz
