"As a composer and pianist, Bärtsch exhausts the contrasts of minimalism and energy, as a sound esthete he is in perfect hands at ECM. Music for the small, intellectual intoxication. Stereoplay, June 2018
It's been six years since Nik Bärtsch and his band Ronin released their last album "Live". In 2018 comes the highly anticipated successor, the studio album "Awase".
The term "Awase" originally comes from the martial arts Aikido and means something like "harmonizing" and "moving together". The name is program, because the quartet once again turns out to be a perfectly functioning unit with precise, incredibly harmonic-grooving interaction.
Ronin recorded six pieces for "Awase" in October 2017 in the studio La Buissonne in the south of France, balancing between jazz, funk, new classical music and Japanese music. Bärtsch calls this combination "Ritual Groove Music". Responsible for the production was ECM CEO Manfred Eicher.
"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 which, in the interim 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".
Musicians:
Nik Bärtsch, piano
Sha, bass clarinet, alto saxophone
Thomy Jordi, bass
Kaspar Rast, drums
Selections:
Side A:
1. Modul 60
2. Modul 58
Side B:
1. A
2. Modul 36
Side C:
1. Modul 34
2. Modul 59