Tord Gustavsen Trio

CD version. Opening is the ninth album as a leader by Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen, and the first with a new voice on bass. Since his trio debut Changing Places in 2003, Gustavsen has built a personal language out of Scandinavian folk song, hymns, chorales, gospel and jazz. Here Steinar Raknes joins longtime drummer Jarle Vespestad, and the change brings bowed bass, discreet electronics and a looser kind of interplay into music that remains quiet, melodic and unhurried.

Raknes takes over from Sigurd Hole, who played on The Other Side (2019), while Vespestad has been at the drums since the trio began. The new bassist arrived with a background that runs from alt-country and americana to post-bop and free jazz. Both he and Gustavsen are credited with electronics as well as their instruments. The album was recorded in October 2021 at the Auditorio Stelio Molo of RSI in Lugano, in collaboration with RSI Rete Due, with Stefano Amerio engineering and Manfred Eicher producing. Gustavsen has said the band started from "the breathing first", opening up the sound and letting melodies enter when they came naturally.

Ten of the twelve pieces are his. The Circle opens with tentative piano lines and shimmering cymbals, the bass moving softly around a bittersweet, hymn-like melody. Findings / Visa från Rättvik is largely improvised, rising from a rumble of drums and a faint electronic layer to a closing quote of the Swedish folk tune. Gustavsen learned that melody from Jan Johansson's recordings. Ritual is the darkest and most insistent track, led by Raknes's bow while the pianist dampens the strings and works in the low register. The record closes with two Norwegian sources, Geirr Tveitt's Fløytelåt and Vær sterk, min sjel, a hymn by Egil Hovland from the Norwegian hymnal.

Reviewers mostly heard continuity with fresh detail. In The Guardian, John Fordham described "a graceful makeover" of the pianist's long-honed recipe, with Raknes "a player of uncannily responsive precision" and electronics that sometimes suggest ghostly horn players. Writing in London Jazz News, John Bungey noted that the keening bowed bass brings colours darker than Gustavsen's usual palette. Chris Pearson of The Times summed it up as "Remarkable music, Norwegian blues."

This is the CD edition, ECM 2742, first released in April 2022.