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Nik Bartsch: Entendre

By Chris May
March 7, 2021
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Back in 2006, Swiss composer and keyboard player

Nik Bärtsch

piano
b.1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Nik B?rtsch's ECM debut, Stoa, recorded with his group Ronin, sounded like the album

James Brown

vocals
1933 - 2006

" data-original-title="" title="">James Brown might have made if he'd appointed

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Reich musical director of his backing band, The J.B.'s. Simultaneously cerebral and on the good foot, it was minimalism, Jim, but not as we knew it. B?rtsch called the music "zen funk."

Since then, B?rtsch has continued to explore the deep space of music-as-math, shuffling and stacking a deck of melodic modules and intricately interlocking rhythms, while humanising the science with funk-inspired bass ostinatos and kick-ass drums. The groove has grown increasingly nuanced, whether B?rtsch has been writing for Ronin or its unplugged sibling, Mobile, which plays a less intense but equally compelling music that B?rtsch calls "ritual groove."

Entendre, B?rtsch's loosest and most in-the-moment affair to date, is one of his few solo outings, though he seems to be warming to the situation—he made a solo tour of the Middle East and South Asia in 2017 and gave a solo performance at New York's Lincoln Center in 2019 as part of ECM's 50th Anniversary celebration. He performs exclusively on acoustic piano on the new album, which sounds as though it was made, at Lugano's Auditorio Stelio Molo studio in September 2020, without any overdubs and little if any editing. On the album, B?rtsch revisits six pieces that he has recorded with Ronin and Mobile. One of them, "Modul 5," from Mobile's Ritual Groove Music (Tonus-Music, 2004), was also included on B?rtsch's debut solo album, Hishiry�� (Tonus-Music, 2002).

B?rtsch does not strip the pieces down to their fundamentals, as might be expected. Instead he creates discursive versions which flow seamlessly and organically back and forth between composition and improvisation. If you were not familiar with the material it would be hard to spot the transitions. B?rtsch says he considers each piece as a template rather than a fixed and final composition. "Each piece plays with the idea of composition, interpretation and improvisation," he says, "and is nourished by the same force, yet can create very surprising results."

Manfred Eicher

" data-original-title="" title="">Manfred Eicher's production captures the sound of the piano and the room with forensic clarity. Entendre is, literally, classic B?rtsch. It is also classic ECM.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

Modul 58_12; Modul 55; Modul 26; Modul 13; Modul 5; Deja-Vu Vienna.

Personnel

Nik B?rtsch

piano

Album information

Title: Entendre | Year Released: 2021 | Record Label: ECM Records

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