Björn Meyer

CD version. Provenance is the first album on ECM Records devoted to the electric bass guitar, in a catalogue that has long made room for unaccompanied double bass. Björn Meyer, Swedish-born and based in Switzerland, plays six-string electric and acoustic bass guitars with a light touch of electronics across twelve pieces. The music sits closer to ambient chamber music than to the virtuoso bass records of fusion.

Meyer has shaped his voice in very different settings, working with the Persian harpist and singer Asita Hamidi and the Tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem. For a decade he was a member of Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, where his bass often carried the lead. His solo work is shaped by the acoustics of the space, and he describes the room as the second member of the project. Here it is the Auditorio Stelio Molo of RSI in Lugano, where engineer Stefano Amerio recorded the album in August 2016, in collaboration with RSI Rete Due. Manfred Eicher produced it.

Much of the writing grows from slowly shifting arpeggiated chords, and changes of texture come gradually, drawing the listener into a calm, attentive state. The opening Aldebaran and the percussive, almost funky Squizzle make the most evident use of electronics. Pendulum starts from four ringing harmonics and builds on simple repeated patterns, while the title track layers melodic figures through delay and reverb. Garden Of Silence, the only piece not by Meyer, is a composition by Hamidi, built on sombre broken chords and an expressive melody.

Roger Thomas in BBC Music Magazine found the music "subtle yet richly engaging" and genuinely ambient. In London Jazz News in 2017 Rob Mallows wrote that "Meyer's bass sings" and credited the Lugano hall with much of the clean sound. He compared the approach to that of another Swedish bassist, Jonas Hellborg. John Marley of Jazz Views heard the influence of dark ambient and post-rock in the chord structures, and praised a recording that keeps great clarity between the notes. Karl Ackermann of All About Jazz singled out the bittersweet tones and guitar-like use of the bass.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2566, first released on 15 September 2017.