Subaqueous Silence is the ECM leader debut of Ayumi Tanaka, a Japanese pianist based in Oslo, and a piano trio record built as much on silence as on sound. Its seven pieces are short, sparse and carefully weighted, closer to chamber music than to the usual trio format. Tanaka describes the group in those terms: "We share a flow of energy, even in silence."
Born in Wakayama, Tanaka moved to Oslo around 2011, drawn by the personal language of Norwegian improvisers, and studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Among her teachers was Misha Alperin, who kept telling her to "Find your own voice". She met bassist Christian Meaas Svendsen and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen soon after arriving, and the trio released Memento in 2016. On ECM she had already appeared with Thomas Strønen on Lucus and Bayou. This album was recorded in June 2019 at Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria in Oslo by Daniel Wold and Ingar Hunskaar, and produced by Manfred Eicher. It is Svendsen's first appearance on the label.
The opening Ruins and its short sequel Ruins II leave long pauses after single notes and chords, letting each sound fade completely before the next. Black Rain turns on Svendsen's strained, intensely physical arco solo, while Concerto heard in Johansen's ride cymbal a hint of the late Jon Christensen. Elsewhere the drummer often works with brushes on the snare, a gently splashed cymbal or shakers. Three pieces are credited jointly to the trio, and Ichi leans on extended techniques and timbre. The nine-minute title track, the only long one, closes the album with a slow, methodical exploration of a dreamy, submerged atmosphere.
Roger Thomas in BBC Music Magazine heard "a genuine jazz sensibility" conveyed "as if by hypnotist's power of suggestion rather than by forthright assertion". Simon Adams of Jazz Journal noted the ascetic rigour of her playing and called the record "a fine debut from a fascinating pianist". Michael Toland of The Big Takeover wrote that her feel for Norwegian jazz makes the album "both a part of and apart from" that scene.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2675, first released on 29 October 2021.
