Life Of is the ninth album for ECM by Steve Tibbetts, the Minnesota guitarist who has recorded for the label since 1981 at long, unhurried intervals. Eight years after Natural Causes (2010), it continues that record's quiet, acoustic direction: a 12-string guitar, a piano, hand percussion and cello drones, shaped into thirteen short pieces that sit somewhere between folk, ambient music and the raga and gamelan traditions he absorbed on repeated journeys to Bali and Nepal.
Both partners are long-standing collaborators. Marc Anderson, his long-time partner, plays percussion and handpan, and Michelle Kinney supplies cello and low drones that are felt more than heard. Tibbetts recorded the music himself in St. Paul between 2016 and 2017, with Greg Reierson as co-engineer and mastering engineer at Rare Form Mastering. His main instrument is an old Martin 12-string, alongside piano and samples of Balinese gongs. For the mix he played the tracks back through speakers in a concert hall at Macalester College and recorded the room, which accounts for the album's deep, natural space.
Ten of the thirteen titles begin with Life Of followed by a first name, and most are named after friends and relatives, living and dead. The pieces are brief, often two to four minutes, and flow into one another. Life Of Emily opens with a sliding, vocal guitar line over Anderson's hand drums, then the drone underneath drops a minor third and the mood darkens almost unnoticed. Life Of Lowell leans on percussion, while the closing Start Again, at nine minutes the longest track, turns towards an earthier, bluesy feel. Tibbetts plays with his fingertips rather than a pick, bending strings until the guitar sounds close to a sarod.
Reviewers heard it as a high point of his career. In The Washington Post, Chris Richards called it "his strongest since 1989's superb Big Map Idea" and "easily the most elegant of his career." J.D. Considine in DownBeat wrote that it "will provide years of deep and rewarding listening," pointing to the small, easily missed changes that give each miniature its drama. Several critics, among them Tim Campbell in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, stressed the record's intimacy, a music made at home and addressed to people close to its maker.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2599, released on 18 May 2018.
