This new opus by Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen is a masterpiece of nuanced half-tones, favouring chiaroscuro lighting, conveying delicate, whispered emotions of infinite richness and very pleasant complexity. All this in a spirit of restraint and economy that Strønen sums up as follows:
With this ensemble, it’s rather about taking away than bringing more into the music
Through seven compositions of rare intelligence, Strønen and his excellent companions (Ole Morten Vågan on double bass, Ayumi Tanaka on piano, Håkon Aase on violin, and Leo Svensson Sander on cello) gently guide us into a world of imprecise and undulating harmonies, sometimes even atonal, of evanescent colours and fluid, ductile rhythms. At the turn of a phrase, a spectral cello melody that evokes an arabesque, elsewhere the scattering of notes on the piano that induces a veiled impressionism, or the soft granularity of Strønen’s drums that creeps in like a fleeting but still partially conscious dream. Two pieces display more prominent sonic asperities: Cubism, which thus bears its title well, and Dismissed with its atonal noise-like expression, although fortunately not thunderous.
Time Is A Blind Guide: Off Stillness is an album of masterful poetry that you would be ill-advised not to greatly appreciate if you consider yourself even slightly a music lover. poésie magistrale que vous seriez malvenu de ne pas apprécier grandement si vous vous considérez le moindrement mélomane.
