Dominic Miller

LP version. Silent Light is the ECM debut of Dominic Miller, for many years Sting's right-hand guitarist and co-writer of Shape of My Heart. It is an almost solo record of acoustic guitar, with light percussion on some pieces. Its eleven short compositions draw on the places he has lived and the music he has played. Its strength is restraint: few notes, space around them, and a warm, round tone.

Miller was born in Argentina to an American father and an Irish mother. He grew up in the United States from the age of ten, studied there and in England, and now lives in France. When Manfred Eicher asked him for an ECM album, he weighed several musicians and line-ups before choosing to play mostly alone. For colour he called his childhood friend, the percussionist Miles Bould, who plays on five tracks. The album was recorded in March 2016 at Rainbow Studio in Oslo, with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer and Eicher producing. Bould learned of the death of Naná Vasconcelos the night before the session.

The pieces range widely while keeping one voice. Baden, a relaxed and precise tune, is dedicated to the Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell, and Urban Waltz carries a Venezuelan lilt. Le Pont has the air of early twentieth-century Paris, while Valium recalls Celtic tunes in the vein of Bert Jansch. Chaos Theory is the most rhythmic piece, with Miller adding electric bass under Bould's drums. Fields of Gold turns Sting's ballad into a hushed instrumental of just over two minutes.

In Stereophile Robert Baird praised "the glorious empty spaces between the guitar chords" and Miller's warm tone and phrasing. For Geno Thackara in All About Jazz the album was "as peaceful and evocative as its title suggests", with chords often implied rather than stated. German-language critics heard French chanson, Latin American rhythm and folk filtered through an aesthetic of reduction. The booklet adds notes by Miller and by Sting.

LP edition of ECM 2518, 180-gram vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with a download code, released together with the CD on 7 April 2017. The cover photograph is by Fotini Potamia.