
And Then Comes the Night (ECM)
Mats Eilertsen / Harmen Fraanje / Thomas Strønen
Released February 1, 2019
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2019
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About:
In 2016, the release of Mats Eilertsen’s album Rubicon gave notice of the breadth of the Norwegian bassist’s compositional range as well as his capacity to direct an ensemble of strong individual voices. Long an important contributor to ECM recordings, and appearing on albums by Tord Gustavsen, Trygve Seim, Mathias Eick, Nils Økland, Wolfert Brederode, Jakob Young and more, Eilertsen has concurrently maintained projects of his own, including the present trio, now in its tenth year of existence.
The new album (named after the novel Summer Light, And Then Comes The Night by Icelandic writer Jón Kalman Stefánsson) is the trio’s first for ECM, and follows two discs on the Hubro label. It was recorded in May 2018 at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo and Eilertsen, drummer Thomas Strønen, and pianist Harmen Fraanje make full use of what Mats calls the studio’s “special character and atmosphere” and the acutely-focused interplay the room seems to encourage. Mats explains: “We came in with a number of songs and compositional sketches and the intention of seeing what could be shaped from them, what could be carved out, with Manfred Eicher’s help, in that specific location. Playing totally acoustically and without headphones, we could work with fine detail in the improvising and really give the music space to sing out in the natural reverb of the room.”
The result is an album of subtle and luminous group music, sidestepping many of the conventions of trio playing, in a recording that demands and rewards concentrated listening. “There is almost no theme-solo-theme playing on this album,” Eilertsen notes. “It’s more like a river or whirlpool of moods that carries you with it.”
The album opens and closes with variations of the sombre “22”, titled for the 22nd of July 2011, when it was composed by Eilertsen in stunned response to news of the attacks on the island of Utøya. “It wasn’t conceived as a homage,” he says quietly. “It was just what I did that day.”
Some pieces on the album are more “written” than others. “Sirens” for instance, “moves once through the written material, with Harmen, of course, having the freedom to respond to it as he chooses. He’s such a brilliant player and will discover another dimension in the material that I present to him. The same goes for Thomas’s drumming, where no parts are written.” Sensitised overlapping of deep pulses from double bass and the unpitched throb of the gran casa drum intensifies the sense of mystery at the bottom end of the music.
“The Void” is an older Eilertsen piece, which draws an improviser into its emptiness. “It’s a piece I’ve played for many years in many different ways. Live it can open up into total freedom….Here the piano part is very close to the way it was composed.”
Pianist Harmen Fraanje played on Mat’s Rubicon, but the association with Eilertsen goes back to 2001, when Mats was living in the Netherlands. “I actually met Harmen in my very last week in Holland, and we played a gig together. That was the start of things.” Harmen and Mats worked for a while with Belgian drummer Teun Verbruggen, before Thomas Strønen was drafted into the line-up. Eilertsen and Strønen already had shared history: both had studied in Trondheim, and they had played in numerous groups together.
One early collaboration was on the debut album of the band Food, recorded in 1998: Mats played in the original incarnation of this group, alongside Strønen, Iain Ballamy and Arve Henriksen. A first shared recording on ECM was with the Strønen-led improvisational band Parish in 2004, where drummer and bassist collaborated with pianist Bobo Stenson and saxophonist and clarinettist Fredrik Ljungkvist.
Recent recordings with Mats Eilertsen include Trygve Seim’s Helsinki Songs and Mathias Eick’s Midwest. In addition to co-leadership of Food, whose ECM albums are This Is Not A Miracle, Mercurial Balm, and Quiet Inlet, Thomas Strønen leads the ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide whose eponymously titled first album was followed in 2018 by Lucus.
Harmen Fraanje has been hailed by All About Jazz as “one of the most impressive young European pianists” of the last decade. Active across a wide area of jazz and improvisation, he leads and co-leads several projects of his own, and has played with musicians including Ambrose Akinmusire, Mark Turner, Kenny Wheeler, Thomas Morgan, Tony Malaby, Han Bennink, Ernst Reijseger, Theo Bleckmann, Ben Monder, Enrico Rava, Louis Moholo, Ferenc Kovács, Rudi Mahall and Trygve Seim.
Track Listing:
1. 22 (Mats Eilertsen) 04:58
2. Perpetum (Mats Eilertsen / Harmen Fraanje / Thomas Strønen) 06:55
3. Albatross (Harmen Fraanje) 04:28
4. After the Rain (Mats Eilertsen / Harmen Fraanje) 02:20
5. The Void (Mats Eilertsen) 06:32
6. Solace (Mats Eilertsen / Harmen Fraanje) 02:46
7. Sirens (Mats Eilertsen) 04:37
8. Then Comes the Night (Mats Eilertsen / Harmen Fraanje / Thomas Strønen) 05:04
9. Soften (Harmen Fraanje) 04:52
10. 22 (var.) (Mats Eilertsen) 04:58
Personnel:
Harmen Fraanje: piano
Mats Eilertsen: double bass
Thomas Stronen: drums
Recorded May 2018, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Cover Photo: Muriel Olesen
Design: Sascha Kleis
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Review:
The third album from the Mats Eilertsen Trio — the members are credited separately on the cover, but this is the same trio that recorded Elegy and Sails Set for Hubro — is their debut for ECM, although none of the three is a stranger to the label. Eilertsen has played as a sideman in numerous projects for the label; his debut as leader was 2016’s Rubicon, on which Fraanje also appeared. Strønen, too, is a veteran of multiple ECM combos, most recently his own Time Is a Blind Guide. As a trio, their music is graceful and unhurried. Throughout, Eilertsen leads from the back, his muscular, searching playing pushing the music ever forward. Fraanje shows he is a pianist of supreme quality, while Strønen’s wildly inventive percussion attracts the attention; never playing quite on the beat, he throws in accents and grace notes on unusual instruments one would not normally expect to find in a trap set. “22” starts the album with an amazing, airy lightness, a sweet melody on the keys floating over woody bass which mirrors the piano line before beginning to thrum softly but incessantly alongside skittering, brushed drums. “Perpetum” begins with temple bowl, gong, and bowed cymbal which, combined with Eilertsen’s high arco bass notes, create a Japonesque atmosphere that’s not “jazz” in any recognizable sense and in fact, has more in common with sound artist David Toop’s later releases. About halfway through, sparse piano notes, plucked bass tones, rimshots, and ethnic percussion add splashes of color. The title track starts as a fairly free improvisation with a choppy, offbeat rhythm that sounds almost as though the instruments are stumbling over one another. Toward the end it comes together with something of a bluesy, juke joint feel before disintegrating again like Fats Waller’s band is dismantling the drum kit and packing up. Elsewhere, there are moments of otherworldly beauty, with a searching quality mostly driven by Fraanje’s exceptional pianism. The wonderfully melodic topline of “Albatross” suggests both pop and classical influences. “Solace” is wide open and full of space — its twinkling arpeggios like tiny birds soaring upwards in a shaft of sunlight inside a great cathedral. “Soften” has one of the album’s loveliest melodic figures with a filmic, traveling quality, as though one is cycling across a long bridge with the sun-sparkling waters of a bay far below. This is a beautiful, beguiling album with an almost spiritual grace, from three players at the top of their game. Highly recommended.
John D. Buchanan (AllMusic)