MARILYN CRISPELL & ANDERS JORMIN “Memento”

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ARTIST

Marilyn Crispell & Anders Jormin

ALBUM TITLE

“Memento”

LABEL

Ecm

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A collaboration that has continued intermittently for several years finds its first recorded document in this precious, extremely understated and at times almost elusive album, at least in the duo’s “minimal” format. As for the tone, already briefly suggested above, there could hardly have been a more appropriate title. This is music permeated not so much by pain in the strictest sense as by a profound sense of sorrowful contemplation and restraint, inhabiting a sparse, dry, lean, quintessential space. Everything revolves – or perhaps coils – with extreme modesty around the sheer pleasure of playing, while avoiding all pomposity or rhetoric, qualities from which this music could hardly be further removed – and there is certainly a great need for that.

There are eleven tracks: the first four are jointly credited and therefore presumably created largely on the spot, followed by three compositions by the bassist and four by the pianist. Selecting the finest from among them, given the remarkably consistent tone and overall quality of the work, is an extremely tricky, perhaps even risky, undertaking. But if we had to try, our choices would be the first two improvisations, “For the Children” and “Dialogue”, followed by Jormin‘s “Three Shades of a House – Morning” and “The Dark Light”, and, from Crispell, “Beach at the Newquay” and the closing “Dragonfly”, dedicated to Gary Peacock. Throughout, everything is marked by truly exemplary discretion and subtle good taste.

Alberto Bazzurro

DISTRIBUTED BY

Ducale

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