My new album «On Goldberg Variations» was released today. It is the first time I release music not written by someone else, which is somewhat scary and amazingly exciting. Written and performed together with jazz percussionist Jan Martin Gismervik, it has had a particularly long conception, with roots way back in 2015. With Jan Martins background being improvised music/contemporary jazz and mine being very classical, it was important for us to find a common starting point. This took some time, and was eventually brought to fruition in 2018 with support from #bebeethoven. It was recorded by Johann Günther in Reykjavik and published on Backlash Music with visual concepts by Ida K. Hatleskog.
I have written a few words on the ideas surrounding the project here, for those interrested such things.
The album should appear most places (like spotify, apple music etc.), but I do recommend checking it out on the more musician friendly platform Bandcamp.
We got some nice mentions of the album already, with a particularly lucid review by John Fenton at JazzLocal32:
Stripped of ornament, and elided, the silence between the notes becomes essential in the decoding. We sense what lies between and it is visceral. We follow and are surprised as the motifs and rhythms fall into place. Those familiar with the Goldberg Variations will find themselves attempting mental reconstructions as fragments of rhythm or melody, appear and then vanish. Humans are hard-wired to look for patterns, and in searching for them here, we are drawn inside a spacious pristine world. We compare what we know, or what we think we know and out of that comes the new.
If you are interrested in the project, I recommend checking out the full review here.