Thomas Strønen, Time is a Blind Guide

Off Stillness is the third ECM album by Time Is A Blind Guide, the acoustic ensemble of Norwegian drummer and composer Thomas Strønen. Three string players, piano and drums work on seven Strønen pieces where jazz improvisation and chamber writing meet. For most of the record the group pulse moves as one, with each instrument gliding in and out of the picture. At times the three strings form a trio unit in dialogue with piano and drums. "With this ensemble, it's rather about taking away than bringing more into the music," Strønen says, and the record follows that idea closely.

The line-up changes slightly once again. Cellist Leo Svensson Sander replaces Lucy Railton beside violinist Håkon Aase and double bassist Ole Morten Vågan. Pianist Ayumi Tanaka plays sparely and precisely, responding to Strønen's percussion. The session took place in December 2021 at Rainbow Studio in Oslo with engineer Peer Espen Ursfjord. It was mixed in July 2024 at Bavaria Musikstudios in Munich by Manfred Eicher, Strønen and Michael Hinreiner, and Eicher produced the album. The title nods to Off Balance by Jon Balke's Oslo 13, which Strønen heard in concert at fifteen.

The opening Memories of Paul, dedicated to drummer Paul Motian and pianist Paul Bley, is tense and nearly atonal, a close exchange between drums and piano. Season turns lyrical, with violin and cello bowing in harmony over a light folk colour. In Fall the silences carry as much weight as each stroke of bow or stick. Cubism brings the first fixed metre of the record, and Dismissed has its widest dynamics, with a stumbling pulse and accented tutti phrases. The closing In Awe of Stillness starts in calm textures and becomes agitated and interactive halfway through.

Writing in AllMusic, Thom Jurek found the album "remarkable in practice as well as scope." Robin Lyons in Jazz Journal stressed that "this music is about sonority and tonality", and Filipe Freitas of Jazz Trail wrote that it confirms Strønen's mastery of structure and arrangement. On ECM Reviews Tyran Grillo heard the players breathe together in Tuesday. In his review of the year he named it the jazz-oriented ECM release of 2025 that "stood clearly apart" for him, praising its balance of freedom and form.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2842, released in December 2025.