THOMAS STRØNEN “Off Stillness”

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ARTIST

Thomas Strønen

ALBUM TITLE

“Off Stillness”

LABEL

ECM

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We have followed Thomas Strønen with great interest ever since the early days of Food, his duo with Iain Ballamy, long before the pair joined the ECM roster. Those formative years, documented on Feral Records and Rune Grammofon, already revealed a musician of unusual vision. In our view, Strønen now stands at a point of full artistic maturity and is among the few contemporary musicians capable of revitalising that distinctly Nordic sensibility so closely associated with ECM and cherished by many of its listeners.

For that reason, we are delighted to welcome this third album by his acoustic ensemble Time Is a Blind Guide. In the meantime, Strønen’s presence within the ECM catalogue has continued to expand – one need only recall his contribution to John Surman’s Words Unspoken (2025) – while his artistic identity has found particularly compelling expression in projects such as Relations, released the same year.

With Off Stillness, the group returns to the remarkably high level achieved on its eponymous debut a decade earlier, revisiting and refining the same essential elements: implied pulse, layered percussion and sonic textures, and a distinctive form of interplay that binds the quintet together in relationships that can be direct and explicit one moment, suspended and almost hypnotic the next.

The album ultimately reveals itself as a meditation on musical space, on the care devoted to even the smallest detail, and on the subtle shaping of dynamic nuance. While the musical dialogue between Strønen and Ayumi Tanaka often forms the album’s most compelling axis, the interaction of the three string players – both among themselves and with the rhythm section – is equally crucial in maintaining the ensemble’s balance and enriching its timbral spectrum.

Taken as a whole, Off Stillness presents a distinctive aesthetic world of its own, one that fully embraces a renewed concept of crossover and an imagined, almost magical folklore. Rather than overturning familiar formulas, it expands them, opening new perspectives within an already recognisable language.

Examples of this approach can be heard in the closing “In Awe of Stillness”, in the opening “Memories of Paul” – a symbolic tribute to Paul Bley and Paul Motian – and in the beautifully sinuous “Season”.

Particular praise should also be reserved for the recording itself. Without abandoning the label’s characteristic sonic aesthetic, it introduces a greater sense of openness and natural air, enhancing the music’s organic qualities with remarkable effectiveness.

Sandro Cerini

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