On Songways the Italian pianist Stefano Battaglia and his trio follow the direction set by The River of Anyder (2011) with a new set of chants, hymns and dances. Every piece is by Battaglia, and most take their cue from a visionary or imaginary place in literature, myth or philosophy. It was the first time in his work for ECM that he recorded a second album with an identical line-up, and the 78-minute programme deepens what the earlier record began.
Battaglia is joined by Salvatore Maiore on double bass and Roberto Dani on drums. Both had played on his sextet album Re: Pasolini, and Maiore also on one of the two trios of Raccolto. The album was recorded in April 2012 in the Auditorio of Radiotelevisione svizzera in Lugano, in collaboration with RSI Rete Due. Stefano Amerio engineered and Manfred Eicher produced. Battaglia describes the aim as "a new harmonic balance between archaic modal pre-tonal chant and dances, pure tonal songs and hymns and abstract texture", with more space for the drums.
The references range widely. Ismaro names the city Odysseus raids in Homer, Mildendo Wide Song the capital of Swift's Lilliput, and Monte Analogo the mountain of René Daumal's novel. Vondervotteimittis is the clock-ridden town of a story by Edgar Allan Poe, and Dani's cymbals evoke its clocks. Armonia, nearly fourteen minutes long and inspired by Charles Fourier, unfolds through slow, spare harmonic development. The title track pays homage to Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and Babel Hymn closes the album with Dani moving from hands to sticks on the toms.
Reviewing it for All About Jazz, John Kelman found the interplay more profound than on the previous album, the trio now "an equilateral triangle of finesse, melodism and subtle power". In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Alessandro Topa heard the piano trio treated as a ritual practice. He urged listeners to follow the literary leads in the titles, since reading and listening sharpen each other. S. Victor Aaron, reviewing it for Something Else in February 2013, noted that Songways was Battaglia's fifth album for the label.
CD edition, ECM 2286, first released on 8 February 2013.
