Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous, Jack DeJohnette

To Be Continued is the second album by the trio of Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous and Jack DeJohnette, recorded in Oslo in January 1981. ECM released it that September. The Norwegian guitarist, the Czech bassist and the American drummer had first met as a trio in June 1978, for an album issued under their three names. This second meeting is barer and more direct, built on Rypdal's long, electrically treated guitar lines, Vitous's mobile bass and DeJohnette's forward drive.

The session took place at Talent Studio, with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer and Manfred Eicher producing. Rypdal plays electric guitars and picks up the flute on the title track. Vitous moves between acoustic and electric bass and plays piano on Morning Lake, while DeJohnette adds his voice to the brief closing Uncomposed Appendix. The writing is shared. Rypdal brought Maya, Topplue, Votter & Skjerf and the closer, Vitous two pieces and DeJohnette the title track, while This Morning is credited to all three. The cover photograph is by Milan Horacek, the liner photographs by Roberto Masotti.

The opening Maya builds its intensity at a slow tempo, Rypdal's sustained guitar rising over a patient rhythm section. Mountain in the Clouds, by Vitous, is pushed along by DeJohnette's drums. The nine-minute title track is the longest and most groove-based piece, with an electric bass figure that leans towards funk and DeJohnette driving hard throughout. Topplue, Votter & Skjerf (Norwegian for hat, gloves and scarf) is a short, stately guitar piece that has become one of Rypdal's best-known compositions.

Opinions differed from the start. Reviewing it in Jazz Journal in 1982, Mark Gilbert found little excitement in it and heard music that worked as easy listening. Later writers have been warmer. In AllMusic Paul Collins missed the atmospheric keyboards of the first trio record. He still found it "nonetheless quite compelling", and called Topplue, Votter & Skjerf "gorgeously stark and stately". Tyran Grillo, on the ECM blog Between Sound and Space, singled out the intensity of Maya as the high point of the record.

This CD edition holds the seven original tracks of ECM 1192, first issued on LP in 1981.