Trygve Seim, Frode Haltli

Our Time is the second duo album by Norwegian saxophonist Trygve Seim and accordionist Frode Haltli, sixteen years after Yeraz. Two reed instruments driven by air meet in a programme of originals, free improvisations and folk songs from Ukraine and North India. The rapport has grown with time: at moments the two sound like a single instrument with two players.

Seim and Haltli first worked together in 2000, when the accordionist joined Seim's large ensemble around the time of Different Rivers. They went on to share projects such as Sangam and Rumi Songs before returning to the duo. Seim plays soprano and tenor saxophones here, Haltli accordion. The album was recorded in June 2023 at the Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich-Sendling, a church often chosen for its acoustics, with Stefano Amerio as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer.

Haltli's Du, mi tid (You, my time) opens in dark textures, with Seim's saxophone close to the sound of an oboe. Four pieces are titled as improvisations, each joined to a composed or traditional item. In Improvisation No. 1 / Fanfare the accordion moves from dancing figures to grunting accompaniment while Seim draws long, lonely tones before his simple fanfare melody. The Ukrainian lullaby Oy Khodyt' Son, Kolo Vikon came to Seim from the British harpist Ruth Potter, who shares the arrangement credit. The North Indian song Shyama Sundara Madana Mohana, learned from sarangi scholar Nicolas Magriel, grows out of a long improvisation and brings microtonal inflections. The fourth improvisation ends on a brief reading of the fifth of Stravinsky's Les Cinq Doigts, and Seim's Elegi closes the set.

Reviewers stressed the breath in the music. Simon Adams in Jazz Journal wrote that with Seim "the sound his breath makes" is "as important as the finished note". Julian Maynard-Smith in UK Jazz News noted how the saxophone sits inside the range of the accordion, and how the church setting suits two instruments that sound by air through reeds. Ian Sinclair in the Morning Star heard "a far wider array of sounds and emotions than you might expect from just two instruments".

This is the CD edition, ECM 2813, first released on 13 September 2024.