Kristjan Randalu, Ben Monder, Markku Ounaskari

Absence is the ECM debut of the Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu, nine of his own pieces for a trio without bass. His partners are the American guitarist Ben Monder and the Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari. Randalu writes music of firm structure and lyrical detail, and the record sits between the jazz he improvises and the composed forms he grew up with. Herbie Hancock once called him "a dazzling piano player", and here that technique is put at the service of the writing.

Randalu was born in Estonia in 1978 to two classical pianists, grew up in Germany and trained first as a classical player. He went on to study with John Taylor and Django Bates, and a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music took him to New York, where he first heard Monder. Their 2012 duo album Equilibrium is what led Manfred Eicher to suggest this line-up. Ounaskari, known to ECM listeners from his work with the kantele player Sinikka Langeland, completes the group. The album was recorded in July 2017 at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, with Gérard de Haro and Nicolas Baillard as engineers and Eicher as producer.

Randalu had played several of these pieces as solo piano works, and the guitar and drums open up their structure and detail. With no bassist in the room, Monder often takes on the orchestral role a bass would normally fill, while Ounaskari works mostly on cymbals and the lighter colours of the kit. Forecast, the longest track, opens with resonant piano chords before a burst of energy in which the guitar doubles a piano line and the drums shadow the pulse. The two parts of Lumi are more abstract, built on cymbal flurries and a rippling motif. The closing title piece is a lament over steadily pulsing chords, with plain, melodic solos from Randalu and Monder.

In London Jazz News in 2018, Mike Collins heard a record that "combines an austere and often abstract beauty with fiery passion". He called it a trio conversation that remains clearly Randalu's project. Sean J. O'Connell wrote in DownBeat that the debut "slips seamlessly into the imprint's MO", while noting that some pieces burn hotter than the calm cover suggests. In Culture Sonar, Jim Allen pointed to the impressionist side of Randalu's harmony and compared him at moments to a modern-day Bill Evans.

This is the CD edition of ECM 2586, released in April 2018.