GA Russell

Happy Birthday caravan!

Happy Birthday Conrad!

Unless someone objects, I'm going to get one of these. IRWIN VISE-GRIP Multi-Tool Wire Stripper/Crimper/Cutter, 2078309 - $13.99 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JNNWQ2/

Scott, what a long, strange trip it's been!

Thanks Kevin. I'm going to study your post. My question was about the tools. Does anyone have a recommendation for good tools?

Scott, I have Monoprice 12 awg soft loud speaker cable, and Sewell Deadbolt Fast-Lock banana plugs.

It is now time for me to try to hook up what I have. I will need a wire cutter, stripper and crimper, right? Any recommendations?

Corey Kluber is 32 today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Kluber

Hooray! Mine arrived today, so all is right with the world.

Thanks for that Dave! As Mel Allen would say, "How about that!"

Am I the only one who pre-ordered from Amazon UK who hasn't received it yet?

Pianist/Composer Yelena Eckemoff Evokes Mystery & Allure of Arabian Desert On Quartet Outing "Desert," Set for Release May 4 On Her Label L&H Production Multi-Reed Master Paul McCandless, Bassist Arild Andersen, & Drummer Peter Erskine Join Prolific North Carolina-Based, Moscow-Born Keyboard Virtuoso On Latest Addition to Her Series of Imaginative Concept Albums April 6, 2018 It takes a discerning eye, or in this case ear, to envision the desert as more than a vast, arid wasteland. Pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff succeeds in musically portraying many of this daunting environment's mysteries and its boundless allure on her new recording, Desert, to be released May 4 on her imprint L&H Production. The quartet outing, the latest in the impressive series of concept albums at the core of the prolific Russian-born, North Carolina-based keyboard virtuoso's catalog, reunites her with Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen and internationally acclaimed drummer Peter Erskine and features Oregon co-founder Paul McCandless on oboe, English horn, soprano saxophone, and bass clarinet. Each of Desert's 11 thematically linked compositions, given such descriptive titles as "Bedouins," "Mirages," "Condor," "Oasis," "Dust Storm," and "Sands," showcase Eckemoff's distinctive style that blends classical music with jazz improvisation to create works that range from the ethereal to the mercurial to the dissonant. Yet Eckemoff's music is infused with her Russian soul, vivid memories of picture books she entertained herself with as an only child, and what she calls the "sinuous" nature of her personal narrative which includes having emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the U.S. with her husband in 1991. With her modern, sometimes free-leaning approach and the weight and intensity her composing and playing attains, she and her music are strikingly original. "I'm a very emotional person," she says. "So many things have vanished from my life. When you express these things in your music, when you share your experiences, you compensate for your losses. Music makes you whole again." What is remarkable about Eckemoff, who released numerous albums, some of them classical, before making her bona fide jazz debut in 2010 with the release of the winter-themed trio recording Cold Sun, is that you never know in which direction she's heading. One key to her artistry is her dedication to music that has many intertwined threads. "I haven't composed much for solo piano," she says. "I'm always hearing instruments and the ways they go together." L. to r.: Paul McCandless, Yelena Eckemoff, Peter Erskine, Arild Andersen. For Desert, Eckemoff read extensively about the subject, including several books about Bedouins. "I wanted to know what kind of people they are," she says. "How is it that they've managed to change with the times, finding freedom in such harsh conditions. I wanted to capture the true soul of Bedouins." In envisioning the recording, Eckemoff says, "I thought of Paul and his oboe, on which he is so expressive, and decided this is the sound I wanted. Peter helped me connect with Paul, who really is the reason for this group. As for Arild and Peter, they had just the right voices for my melodies and compositions. I feel like when I have these guys around, I can do anything." Born in Moscow, Yelena Eckemoff has been composing since she was four years old, her musical impressions taken from her mother, a pianist and teacher. Years of academic studies at Gnessins School for musically gifted children, followed by the Moscow Conservatory, provided a solid foundation in classical music. But as she grew into her teens she developed an interest in other musical styles, like pop, rock, and jazz, and this was a time when jazz recordings were so hard to come by in Russia. In 1987, in a pivotal moment for Eckemoff and many other Russian musicians, she attended Dave Brubeck's legendary concert in Moscow. Though she had already started playing jazz before seeing Brubeck, mainly traditional styles and bebop, this was one of the first jazz concerts she had attended, and she was so impressed she formed her own band and "tried to play jazz." But her songs proved too complicated for her fellow musicians (and have gotten no easier, as McCandless, Andersen, and Erskine all attest in a videotaped interview after recording Desert). Alluding to such styles as blues, jazz-rock fusion, and the occasional funk, Eckemoff's albums have ranged far and wide while continuing to deal in high concepts. Glass Song (2013), the first of her albums to team Andersen and Erskine (who surprisingly had never previously played together), is an environmental treat boasting songs about rain, melting ice, and clouds. A Touch of Radiance (2014), dedicated to happiness, features Mark Turner, Joe Locke, George Mraz, and Billy Hart while Lions (2015), featuring Andersen and Hart, captures life in the savanna with songs about those majestic animals and their cubs as well as migrating birds and tropical rains. Photo of quartet by Vanja Srdic "Desert" EPK Web Site: yelenamusic.com

Thanks Jim! I had never seen a photo of Lila Leeds before.

“Awase”, a term from martial arts, means “moving together” in the sense of matching energies, a fitting metaphor for the dynamic precision, tessellated grooves and balletic minimalism of Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin. Six years have passed since the last release from the Swiss group. In the interim, trimmed from quintet to quartet size and with new bassist Thomy Jordi fully integrated, Ronin has become a subtly different band. Bärtsch speaks of a new-found freedom and flexibility in the approach to the material, with “greater transparency, more interaction, more joy in every performance”. The freedom here extends to revisiting early Bärtsch modules alongside new compositions including, for the first time on a Ronin record, a piece by reedman Sha. Awase was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the south of France in October 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher. In Concert May 4 Montreal, Que (L’Astral) May 5 Boston, MA (The Red Room at Cafe 939/Berklee College of Music) May 6 New York, NY (Le poisson rouge) May 8 Philadelphia, PA (World Café Live) May 9 Washington DC (Blues Alley) May 10 Chicago, IL (Constellation) © *2018 ECM Records US, A Division of Verve Music Group. All rights reserved.

Thanks Ted! I'll send Laurie a link to your comments.

Laurie Pepper has announced that her next Widow's Taste release will go out this November. It will include a 1977 interview Art gave in Toronto. Anyone who recognizes the voice is welcome to contact Laurie! https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/name-the-interviewer

ECM Steve Tibbetts Life Of Steve Tibbetts: guitar, piano Marc Anderson: percussion, handpan Michelle Kinney: cello, drones Release date: May 18, 2018 ECM 2599 B0028330-02 UPC: 6025 672 3545 3 One-of-a-kind guitarist and record-maker Steve Tibbetts has an association with ECM dating back to 1981, with his body of work reflecting that of an artist who follows his own winding, questing path. The BBC has described his music as “an atmospheric brew… brilliant, individual.” Life Of, his ninth album for the label, serves as something of a sequel to his previous ECM release, Natural Causes, which JazzTimes called “music to get lost in.” Like the earlier album, Life Of showcases the richness of his Martin 12-string acoustic guitar, along with his gamelan-like piano and artfully deployed field samples of Balinese gongs; the sonic picture also incorporates the sensitive percussion of long-time musical partner Marc Anderson and the almost subliminal cello drones of Michelle Kinney. Tibbetts, though rooted in the American Midwest, has made multiple expeditions to Southeast Asia, including Bali and Nepal; not only the sounds but the spirits of those places are woven into his musical DNA as much as the expressive inspiration of artists from guitarist Bill Connors to sarangi master Sultan Khan. Life Of has a contemplative shimmer like a reflecting pool, with most of the album’s pieces titled after friends and family, living and past. After the long break following Tibbetts’ 1994 ECM release The Fall of Us All – a period that saw him collaborate with the likes of Norwegian Hardanger fiddle player Knut Hamre and Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma – the guitarist has returned to a consistent production schedule for the label in the 21st century. He has released an album via ECM every eight years, with Life Of preceded by the similarly acoustic-oriented Natural Causes (2010) and the fiery, electric A Man About a Horse (2002). These impressionistic, densely layered creations led Jazzizmagazine to note about the guitarist-producer’s style of evocative abstraction: “He seems more interested in radiant sound paintings than… linear structures. The forest is more intriguing to him than the trees.” Tibbetts says the difference between making Natural Causes and Life Of is that he’s “a better piano player now,” adding: “I labor over these records to perhaps an insane degree, but that’s not about achieving any kind of instrumental perfection. So many things in our culture are over-produced now, sanded down to a kind of flawless metallic gleam. I’ve gone more organic as the years have gone on. There’s no compression on this record and just a little EQ, with some mistakes left in. I want the records to have a human, handcrafted quality.” As with Natural Causes, Tibbetts mixed the record in the concert hall of Macalester College,near where he lives in Minnesota. “I take all my gear down to the hall and play the tracks back in the room’s acoustic, capturing the room tone and mixing it that way,” he explains. “I set up two pairs of mics: one pair in the center of the hall, one pair in the back. It allows the hall’s ambience to settle around the piano and percussion, and the room’s natural acoustics help the guitar settle into the piano. It’s a more labor-intensive process, and the effect is perhaps subtle to most ears. But it feels more organic to me, adding some reality to the sound. I suppose it’s like a bay leaf in a soup – it has an intangible effect that adds to the experience.” The album’s key tone generator is Tibbetts’ 12-string guitar, the Martin D-12-20 he got from his father in the late ’70s. He has long incorporated into his playing string bends and vibrato inspired by jazz guitarist Bill Connors and blues-rocker Harvey Mandel, as well as the vocalideal that Sultan Khan achieved with his bowed sarangi. “That Martin guitar is now, almost a half-century old, with the frets almost worn flat – and I keep the strings old and kind of dead, something I got from Leo Kottke,” he says. “So, the instrument has a mellow, aged sound, with its own peculiar internal resonance – like it has a small concert hall inside it. I try to bring out that quality by stringing the guitar in double courses, the four lower strings paired in unisons rather than octaves. You really have to physically engage with the strings of this guitar, while also being careful that your touch doesn’t de-tune the strings. But setting it up that way makes it so I can play with the resonant qualities of the wood, drawing out overtones and getting the single string lines to ‘sing’ – which is what I loved about the sound of Sultan Khan, the way he could fill the room like a voice.” Tibbetts plays the piano as kind of virtual gamelan, using the keyboard like a row of gongs and letting it cycle through the structure of a piece. The layers of his guitar and piano interact with the actual gongs and other metallophones Tibbetts sampled in Bali and that he triggers via another 12-string guitar equipped with a MIDI interface. Such tracks as “Life of Mir” also include the subtly placed cello lines of Kinney (who also appeared on Tibbetts’ 1989 ECM disc, Big Map Idea). Then there is the ever-sympathetic percussion of Anderson, who has played on all of Tibbetts’ ECM albums. “Working with Marc is like working with my own hands,” the guitarist says. “I don’t have to tell my hands to find the fretboard – they just do. It’s the same with Marc, after 40 years. I don’t have to ask him to do anything in particular. On his own, he always finds the right drum, the right approach.” About the sound and sensibility of his two most recent albums, Tibbetts says: “I suppose nostalgia inevitably creeps into life at middle age, so it’s fitting that these two records are more about quiet, acoustic reflection and less about shredding on electric guitar, as with A Man About a Horse and The Fall of Us All.” The titles for 10 of the songs on Life Of refer to loved ones or even a person Tibbetts might have observed closely over time while at work in a local coffee shop – “Life of Emily,” “Life of Joel,” “Life of Someone” and so on. This lends abstract music a personal element, even if the titles came independently of the musical inspiration. This is especially so in the scene-setting opener “Bloodwork,” the title of which relates to Tibbetts going through an intense medical procedure to help his sick sister. He says: “It’s simultaneously a very personal word and a very clinical word, which I suppose echoes the experience.” As for the long, if consistent, gaps between albums, Tibbetts concludes: “I’m not churning out a tremendous amount of music, it’s true. But I think my listeners trust me. When I take the time to put something together over a long period and am finally satisfied with it, I think they will be, too.” LISTEN / PREORDER Elina Duni: voice, piano, guitar, percussion Songs of love, loss and leaving. After two highly acclaimed albums with her jazz quartet, Elina Duni issues her most intimate recording to date. The entirely solo Partir features the Tirana-born vocalist, accompanied by her own piano, guitar and frame drum, interpreting songs from very diverse sources, from folk songs and chansons to songs of singer-songwriters. Here we find traditional music from Albania, Kosovo, Armenia, Macedonia, Switzerland and Arab-Andalusia as well as Jacques Brel’s “Je ne sais pas”, Alain Oulman’s “Meu Amor”, Domenico Modugno’s “Amara Terra Mia”, Elina’s own “Let Us Dive In” and more. Duni’s uniquely-expressive voice and pared-down arrangements locate a common thread of longing that runs through the material. Partir was recorded at Studios La Buissone in the South of France in July 2017, and produced by Manfred Eicher. LISTEN / PREORDER Kristjan Randalu: piano | Ben Monder: guitar | Markku Ounaskari: drums Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu makes his ECM debut with a striking album of his own rigorous-yet-lyrical music, sensitively played by a trio formed especially for this recording, with American guitarist Ben Monder and Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari. As an improviser of prodigious technique, once described by Herbie Hancock as “a dazzling piano player”, Randalu’s affinities are with the jazz musicians, but the forms and dynamics of his pieces also reflect a discerning sense of structure, and he has cited composers Erkki-Sven Tüür and Tõnu Kõrvitz amongst his mentors. Absence was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the south of France in July 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher. © *2018 ECM Records US, A Division of Verve Music Group. All rights reserved. ECM Steve Tibbetts - Life Of release date: May 18,2018 Steve Tibbetts: guitar, piano; Marc Anderson: percussion, handpan; Michelle Kinney: cello, drones One-of-a-kind guitarist and record-maker Steve Tibbetts has an association with ECM dating back to 1981, with his body of work reflecting that of an artist who follows his own winding, questing path. The BBC has described his music as "an atmospheric brew... brilliant, individual." Life Of, his ninth album for the label, serves as something of a sequel to his 2010 ECM release, Natural Causes, which JazzTimes called "music to get lost in." Like the earlier album, Life Of showcases the richness of his Martin 12-string acoustic guitar, along with his gamelan-like piano and artfully deployed field samples of Balinese gongs; the sonic picture also incorporates the sensitive percussion of long-time musical partner Marc Anderson and the almost subliminal cello drones of Michelle Kinney. Tibbetts, though rooted in the American Midwest, has made multiple expeditions to Southeast Asia, including Bali and Nepal; not only the sounds but the spirits of those places are woven into his musical DNA as much as the expressive inspiration of artists from guitarist Bill Connors to sarangi master Sultan Khan. Life Of has a contemplative shimmer like a reflecting pool, with most of the album's pieces titled after friends and family, living and past.

Happy Easter 2018 my friends!

I remember Ed Charles in 1961! He played for the Vancouver Mounties (the Kansas City AAA team) against my Seattle Rainiers.

Elvis Presley - The RCA Albums Collection (60 CDs) - $166.33 https://www.amazon.com/RCA-Albums-Collection-Elvis-Presley/dp/B019YQJRKO

OK, thanks John.

John, do you usually buy from them direct?

This is a good one! Note that it is a compilation album recorded between 1990 and 2014. It is very representative of its time.

Drummer/Composer Reggie Quinerly Reveals a New Aspect of His Musicianship With the April 20 Release of "Words to Love," An Album of Originals Exploring the Many Facets of Love Vocalists Melanie Charles & Milton Suggs Join Pianist Orrin Evans, Bassist Ben Wolfe, & Guest Saxophonist Jaleel Shaw On Acclaimed Drummer's Third Recording For His Redefinition Music Imprint CD Release Show at Smoke, NYC, Thursday, May 31 March 26, 2018 Hailed by DownBeat as the embodiment of "style, substance, soul, and swagger," Reggie Quinerly is just the kind of drummer to take on a first-time challenge -- like writing an album's worth of songs featuring vocalists. "As a drummer, I'm always trying to write things you wouldn't expect," says Quinerly. On Words to Love, his third album as a leader which is set for April 20 release by Redefinition Music, Quinerly composed music and lyrics for eight songs exploring the many facets of love. Previously the drummer had written words and music for the title track of his acclaimed 2012 debut album, Music Inspired by Freedmantown, and collaborated on another song on that disc. Now, his muse told him to build on the experience. "I decided to write about love in all its varieties," the 37-year-old Houston native explains. "This gave me another chance to reveal something new about myself as an artist, and I really immersed myself in the process." Inspired by singers Lou Rawls, Ella Fitzgerald, Betty Carter, and others, Quinerly drafted a pair of proven young artists to sing his songs: Chicago native Milton Suggs, a soulful conduit to the Rawls legacy, and Melanie Charles, a multifaceted Brooklynite who also plays the flute and is actively in touch with her Haitian roots. Quinerly had wanted to work with Suggs since meeting him about five years ago. "I love Milton's articulation, his attention to melody," he says. "He's all business when he sings. Every word is meaningful, thoughtful, impactful. There's a regal quality to what he does." Though he had only played one gig with Charles, she made a strong impression on him. "Melanie's an expressive singer with a very personal approach," he says. "I like the light texture of her voice and the fact that she sings in a lot of different styles. She brought a distinctive pop sensibility to the songs." Having teamed with Gerald Clayton, Tim Warfield, and Mike Moreno on his first album and rising stars Warren Wolf and Christian Sands on his second effort, Invictus (2015), Quinerly put together another killer band for Words to Love: pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Ben Wolfe, and, on selected tracks, alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw. With its overarching concept and alternating male and female vocals, Words to Love is an ambitious step forward for Quinerly. "I'm always looking to take a back seat, to play in support of the people around me," he says. "Everybody on this album understood that the music, the songs, came first." Words to Love explores all varieties of love. The opening piece "Until I Met You" addresses "the full beauty" of what falling in love entails, while the bluesy "You Bring Out My Best" is about the kind of deep and lasting love Quinerly found with his wife Toni, to whom the album is dedicated (and who appears with him on the cover). The tender "Times We've Yet to See" was written with their baby daughter, Harper Joy, in mind. One of the least discussed aspects of jazz may be the work of great drummers on ballads. "There is a tendency to focus on things that are more rhythmically challenging," says Quinerly, who might be referring to the groove-tight but open-feeling "Hope Is My Home," on which Shaw meshes beautifully with Suggs and Evans dances elegantly around Wolfe's walking notes. "But ballads make their own special demands. It's really important to be in control of your dynamics, to maintain an even sound, and to be supportive. Some drummers are much better at accompanying singers than others." Reggie Quinerly was born on November 16, 1980 in Houston, into a scene that nourished such strong and singular artists as Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, and Mike Moreno. Like them, Quinerly attended the High School of the Performing and Visual Arts, where his mentors included Lester Grant, a top session drummer in the 1950s. Reggie went on to attend the Mannes School of Music at New School University in New York where he got to study with three great drummers: Jimmy Cobb, Lewis Nash, and Kenny Washington. From the start, Quinerly was less interested in becoming the next traps phenomenon than developing into a complete artist whose skills as a composer and arranger were fully integrated into his prowess at the traps. He went on to earn his Master's in Jazz Studies at Juilliard, after which this "conscientious jazz drummer with a nimble and approachable style" (New York Times) played with such leading artists as Wynton and Branford Marsalis. With saxophonist Marcus Strickland, he played and lectured as part of Jazz at Lincoln Center's Jazz in the Schools program. In the fall of 2017 he returned to Juilliard as an adjunct professor. The Reggie Quinerly Quartet will celebrate the release of Words to Love at Smoke, New York, on Thursday 5/31. Photography: Javier Oddo Words to Love EPK Web Site: reggiequinerly.com

ECM Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin Awase Nik Bärtsch: piano Sha: bass clarinet, alto saxophone Thomy Jordi: bass Kaspar Rast: drums Release date: May 4, 2018 ECM 2603 B0028299-02 (CD) B0028300-01(Vinyl) CD UPC: 6025 673 5867 1 2-LP 180g UPC: 6025 673 5869 5 Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin on tour May 4 Montreal, Que L’Astral May 6 New York, NY le poisson rouge May 8 Philadelphia, PA World Café Live May 9 Washington DC Blues Alley May 10 Chicago, IL Constellation *** further dates in preparation Six years have passed since Live, the last release from Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, the long gap bridged in 2015 with Continuum, an album from Mobile, Bärtsch’s all-acoustic project. “I wanted to give Ronin the peace and space it needed to develop,” says the Swiss composer-pianist. “Not to put it under pressure, and to take all the steps necessary before the next recording.” Awase, recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in October 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher, updates us on the progress of one of the most original bands around, as well as the present-day status of ritual groove music, Bärtsch’s all-purpose term for his self-invented idiom equidistant from jazz and funk and contemporary composition. Almost by definition, rituals can’t be rushed, and Ronin has had some changes to absorb. With bassist Thomy Jordi replacing Björn Meyer in 2011, and percussionist Andi Pupato departing the following year, trimming the line-up from quintet to quartet, Ronin has gradually become a subtly different band. A leaner, more agile animal. Bärtsch speaks of a new-found freedom and flexibility in the approach to the material, with “greater transparency, more interaction, more joy in every performance”. The freedom here extends to revisiting earlier Bärtsch modules alongside new compositions including, for the first time on a Ronin record, a piece by reedman Sha. “We’ve spent a long time working on the new repertoire, really checking out and fine tuning all the details.” Awase, a term from Aikido, means “moving together” in the sense of matching energies, a fitting metaphor for the dynamic precision, tessellated grooves and balletic minimalism of Ronin today. In the old band, Bärtsch often chose to present Björn Meyer’s flamboyant 6-string bass as a lead instrument. Thomy Jordi’s 4-string bass guitar tends to be deployed within the fabric of the pieces, creatively fulfilling a more traditional bass function and locking in with Kaspar Rast’s powerful drums. With Bärtsch also scaling back his own solo playing, listeners are encouraged to hear the whole music and its layered, shifting approach to interaction in new ways. The album opens with an abbreviated version of “Modul 60”, quite unlike the interpretation heard on the Mobile recording. “We’ve always taken the position that the compositions can be played by both groups – Mobile or Ronin – to bring out different aspects of the music. When we did ‘60’ with Mobile, I was hearing it in a very chamber music way and it radiated a sort of bittersweet atmosphere. With Ronin it has a sparseness, an emptiness and a roughness that I really like. In the studio Manfred and I had the idea that it would be nice to play it as a sort of ‘quote’, bringing the story forward from Continuum. So, this new version starts around the middle of the composition…” “Modul 58” is built upon – in Ronin terms – “a simple pattern cycle, just 5 against 7, and the same motif even, but it created such an interesting form. We usually think that metre, rhythm and the start of a piece all begin on the ‘one’, but in a lot of the tribal music styles we admire there is often not such a clear downbeat. ‘58’ becomes a kind of metric mantra which keeps loading itself up until we get to the more open part. You can hear, almost ironically, the simplicity of the two rhythms but you cannot catch them at the same time. In its direction and its energy this piece still feels new to me, although there is something about it that seems archaic.” The role of bass clarinettist and alto saxophonist Sha (born Stefan Haslebacher) has been steadily growing inside Ronin, and this is acknowledged by the inclusion of his composition “A”, which forms a contrasting transition on the album between “Modul 58” and “Modul 36”, while also being an effective piece in its own right. Nik Bärtsch: “When Ronin plays it as an organism it attains an enormous power and it shows, I think, that Sha is developing a personal and unique language as a composer.” “Modul 36” is an old Ronin favorite which introduced the group to ECM listeners back in 2006: “Yes, it was a conscious decision to choose that piece to mark this quartet album also as a kind of new beginning, and to show how things have developed. In terms of structure and clear, fine detail, the compositional aspects – those things remain. But the group feeling is very different and the energy more voodoo-ish, perhaps. And I’m really enjoying playing as part of the band again on ‘36’, rather than soloing.” Written “back in 2002 or 2003”, “Modul 34” receives its premiere recording here. “Sometimes pieces just have to wait until they are ready, or we are ready. Part of the challenge with ‘34’ was not to allow it to become too busy on the one hand, or too formal on the other.” The members of Ronin meet every week, as they have done for many years now, to puzzle out the implications of Bärtsch’s pieces in workshops and performances at the Zürich club, Exil. The group is, says Nik, still coming to terms with the demanding final piece here, “Modul 59”. It is one which, he says, points the way to the future. “It begins from basic ideas, in this case to do with triplets, and builds until it becomes a sort of polyrhythmic, polyphonic carpet of sound. We’ve rehearsed and developed it extensively, and it still keeps surprising us.” Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin are touring widely with the music of Awase in 2018. For details visit www.nikbaertsch.com and www.ecmrecords.com