Good year for fans of Thomas Strønen
What with the marvel of John Surman’s guitar and vibes speckled Words Unspoken and this work of his own it’s been an especially good year to be a fan of Norwegian drummer-composer Thomas Strønen in terms of long distilled output and glimpses of the latest work from a remarkable musical mind.
Long on the radar of some British jazz fans because of his association with another Englishman the great saxophonist Iain Ballamy in the band Food, Strønen follows a unique path.
And while an avant-gardist you can’t really categorise him. I’d prefer the terms open and pluralistic to describe his highly percussive sense. A musical roamer traversing all sorts of folk and global terrain you get almost a sense of ancient dreaming found on ‘Koyasan’ where the role of kantele player Sinikka Langeland is important.
It’s as if Strønen is about a process of dismantling to the most elemental of sounds where he inserts a vibrational questing forthrightness at every turn.
Surfeit of surprises
Surprises include the unearthly burst of primeval voice from Langeland on ‘Beginners Guide to Simplicity’ which is both stark and compelling. Here the gently tolling cymbal work of Strønen is both balm and again mystical and pure.
These pieces are often quite brief. But they aren’t at all slight. You get an episodic sense that when heard in its entirely develops into a vivid collage.
Duets shaped by a solo vision
Strung together over four years it’s an album of duets and besides Langeland whose contributions are at the heart of the album hugely contrastive contributions from Craig Taborn, Chris Potter and Jorge Rossy (on piano) shape shift amiably.
In Taborn’s case it’s very much a highly abstract vision that hovers on a genre-less cloud. The American pianist has a habit of finding the exact impossibly cool and unexpected chordal poetitude to drift away to.
Fellow countryman of Taborn’s Potter finds an idiom that is more mystical than usual emerging from a sort of miasma on ‘Ephemeral’ and where Strønen changes in reaction to rattle off a chattering, hypnotic motion.
Toru Takemitsu inspired
Very different to the clarinet flavoured earlier far more intricate album of the Norwegian’s Bayou that we also liked titles here include ‘Confronting Silence,’ the naming inspired by composer Toru Takemitsu’s Selected Writings.
Stylistically Strønen shares a lot in common with the approach of the multi-directional loving Alexander Hawkins drummer Steve ‘Dakiz’ Davis. I put on Davis masterpiece Sugar Blade from a decade ago afterwards as it seemed to chime with what I heard here on Relations.
Strønen, 51, studied at NTNU in Trondheim in the 1990s which proved a fertile breeding ground for a wide range of now internationally renowned Norwegian improvisers and jazz musicians.
He has worked with some of the icons of Norwegian jazz including Arve Henriksen, Mats Eilertsen, Eivind Aarset, Christian Fennesz and the godfather of them all – c’mere none other than Khmer legend Nils Petter Molvær on Ballamy’s Food classic from 2010, Quiet Inlet.
Making records for ECM for approaching 20 years Strønen’s own band Time Is A Blind Guide has probably garnered most international acclaim. On the classical side he has written for the Norwegian Opera and Ballet.
Grandeur of ‘Arc for Drums’
Relations is an interesting album. It makes me feel real gone as if hit by a bow and arrow and draws so many strands together acting like a cleansing and reset of elements. ‘Arc for Drums’ has a grandeur to it achieved quite organically.
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