YOUN SUN NAH 나윤선 — Voyage (2009) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

"The discovery of the season... In jazz singing, we haven't encountered anything more colorful, intriguing, and virtuosic in a long time." - Süddeutsche Zeitung ACT
Tracklist :
1    Dancing With You 4:44
Written-By – Youn Sun Nah
2    The Linden 5:00
Written-By – Lars Danielsson, Lina Nyberg
3    Calypso Blues 4:06
Written-By – Don George, Nat King Cole
4    My Bye 4:25
Written-By – Natacha, Youn Sun Nah
5    Jockey Full Of Bourbon 3:42
Written-By – Tom Waits
6    Voyage 6:00
Written-By – Youn Sun Nah
7    Please, Don't Be Sad 3:46
Written-By – Youn Sun Nah
8    Shenandoah 4:32
Written-By – American Folk Song
9    Come, Come 3:31
Written-By – Youn Sun Nah
10    Frevo 5:17
Written-By – Egberto Gismonti
11    Inner Prayer 5:05
Written-By – Youn Sun Nah
12    India Song 4:58
Written-By – Carlos D'Alessio, Marguerite Duras
Credits :
Acoustic Bass, Cello, Melodica, Producer – Lars Danielsson
Guitar [Guitars] – Ulf Wakenius
Percussion – Xavier Desandre-Navarre
Trumpet – Mathias Eick
Vocals – Youn Sun Nah

MANU KATCHÉ - Playground (2007) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Drummer Manu Katche's sophomore effort for ECM is, in some ways, an extension of his nearly brilliant debut Neighbourhood, issued by the label in 2004. The former recording listed such ECM standard bearers as trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and veteran saxophonist Jan Garbarek on the front line and a rhythm section comprised of pianist Marcin Wasilewski and bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz (from Stanko's group). Playground keeps the rhythm section intact, but Mathias Eick and Trygve Seim, on trumpet and saxophones respectively, make up the front line. While there can be no denying the lyrical power of the former unit, this one feels more like a band. Seim is a leader in his own right, having released three fine recordings under his own name and been part of numerous ECM ensembles. He and Eick played together in Iro Haarla's band for the wonderful Northbound recording. The trumpeter is also an integral part of guitarist Jacob Young's group whose ECM debut, Evening Falls, was one of 2002's best jazz releases. Manfred Eicher likes to keep it in the family when he's producing, and he hasn't been wrong for a long time. This set was recorded in New York, and though it retains the trademark ECM "sound" in some ways, it's warmer, too. Separation and space abound, but the dynamic reach of this group transcends that at times.

Guitarist David Torn helps out on the opener, "Lo," and third cut "Song for Her." Interestingly, they are two of the quieter cuts on the set, and Torn's support work is largely atmospheric. The symbiotic communication between Eick and Seim is something to behold. Drummer Manu Katche's sophomore effort for ECM is, in some ways, an extension of his nearly brilliant debut Neighbourhood, issued by the label in 2004. The former recording listed such ECM standard bearers as trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and veteran saxophonist Jan Garbarek on the front line and a rhythm section comprised of pianist Marcin Wasilewski and bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz (from Stanko's group). Playground keeps the rhythm section intact, but Mathias Eick and Trygve Seim, on trumpet and saxophones respectively, make up the front line. While there can be no denying the lyrical power of the former unit, this one feels more like a band. Seim is a leader in his own right, having released three fine recordings under his own name and been part of numerous ECM ensembles. He and Eick played together in Iro Haarla's band for the wonderful Northbound recording. The trumpeter is also an integral part of guitarist Jacob Young's group whose ECM debut, Evening Falls, was one of 2002's best jazz releases. Manfred Eicher likes to keep it in the family when he's producing, and he hasn't been wrong for a long time. This set was recorded in New York, and though it retains the trademark ECM "sound" in some ways, it's warmer, too. Separation and space abound, but the dynamic reach of this group transcends that at times.

Guitarist David Torn helps out on the opener, "Lo," and third cut "Song for Her." Interestingly, they are two of the quieter cuts on the set, and Torn's support work is largely atmospheric. The symbiotic communication between Eick and Seim is something to behold. The wonderfully tender ballad "Lo" contains the kind of restraint and reliance on gentleness that's difficult for two horn players -- these days anyway -- to hold together as a unit; one usually comes off sounding more dominant than the other. But Katche's pace, with so many subtle fills, and Wasilewski's bridge between the horns is sturdy and moves the melody forward allowing them to hold steady. There are numerous ballads on this set, which is unusual for a drummer, but Katche is nothing if not a lyrical composer. His subtlety is one of his great strengths -- check the quietly insistent brushed hi hat trills in triple time on "Emotions." "So Groovy" is nothing if not modern-day soul-jazz. A skeletal, funky backbeat with Katche playing breaks everywhere relies heavily on Kurkiewicz's bassline to not only keep the pulse, but also to keep it moving. The head in the tune is loping but stays tight. Eick's solo simmers as Katche's percussion and kit work quietly push him even as Wasilewski fills the space with some angular but in-the-cut chords. "Morning Joy" alternates between improvisational sketch and gently swinging mid-tempo ballad. One has to wonder if the solo drumming at the beginning of "Motion" is not a sort of homage to Paul Motian, it replicates his notion of pulse and swing nearly perfectly while keeping Katche's unique snare work his own. The post-bop head in the tune would also seem to suggest that, but the tune moves over a couple of times into other territory without ever straying from that theme too much, and becomes more harmonically complex as it goes. There is also a beautiful bluesy funk element here, that never leaves the realm of controlled tension, but is so seamless it's easy to initially miss the many changes it undergoes -- and there's a killer little solo by Wasilewski.

"Snapshot" is a modern-day glimpse of the classic Blue Note sound of the early to mid-'60s. The themes and solos (particularly by Seim) are modern, but the deep blues and even slightly bossa feel in the rhythms touch on that territory. Katche is at his very best here, dancing like Billy Higgins but deeper in the lower registers of his kit. Them other ballads here, such as "Project 58" and "Possible Thought" are all transformed, chameleon-like, into other things as these wonderfully airy but complex compositions shimmer, slip and slide through the ear. Katche's drumming is quiet but so knotty. He's everywhere, traveling around the band with Kurkiewicz as his foil, guiding this band through his tunes (check the terrain "Inside Games" covers from front to back). The sophisticated urban groove of "Clubbing" is one of the hippest songs Katche's written, with a rolling piano line in the lower register in the head, the drummer breaking and shifting grooves on the bell of his ride cymbal. The solos begin with Eick, and he moves form post-bop to slightly outside, never losing his sense of time or melody. Seim follows suit, but moves to the edges more quickly; his bop phrasing also goes into a kind of modalism around the blues before Wasilewski, becomes a machine, hitting arpeggios insistently and percussively as Katche answers breaking his beat all around him filling that center space. The interplay between the two men is never better than it is here and could have gone on far longer. The set closes with a variation of "Song for Her" that feels more like a reprise than anything else. The first version is so utterly beautiful it seems almost superfluous. In all, Playground is a step ahead of its predecessor; namely because Katche's compositions, while they are more complex, have lost none of their inherent lyricism. The two new front line players have brought with them the experience of playing together and this rhythm section has worked together for a while. They fold into the mix of the ensemble rather than simply standing out on their own. Playground is an exciting new chapter in Katche's evolution as a leader; but more than this, bodes well for the future of jazz: it never loses sight of itself, but moves the various threads of its subgenres further without stretching any of them to the breaking point.
>This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa'<
Tracklist :
1    Lo 6'25
(Manu Katché)
2    Pieces Of Emotion 4'13
(Manu Katché)
3    Song For Her 6'24
(Manu Katché)
4    So Groovy 5'50
(Manu Katché)
5    Morning Joy 5'27
(Manu Katché)
6    Motion 5'14
(Manu Katché)
7    Project 58 6'13
(Manu Katché)
8    Snapshot 4'53
(Manu Katché)
9    Possible Thought 6'03
(Manu Katché)
10    Inside Game 5'06
(Manu Katché)
11    Clubbing 7'03
(Manu Katché)
12    Song For Her (Var) 6'22
(Manu Katché)
Credits :
Manu Katché - Drums
Mathias Eick - Trumpet
Trygve Seim - Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone
Marcin Wasilewski - Piano
Slawomir Kurkiewicz - Double-Bass
David Torn - Guitar 

MATHIAS EICK - Midwest (2015) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick opts for a different approach on Midwest. Four years after the song-like Skala, his sophomore ECM date that has attained "classic" status in European critical circles, he employs notions of history, folk tradition, and dislocation. This album was inspired by Eick's time spent playing the American continent; his tour began on the West Coast. When he entered the rural, upper Midwest and encountered its vast open spaces, he began to feel a sense of "home." He later learned that over the past two centuries of immigration, over a million Norwegians had settled there. After conceiving a "road" album that would begin in Hem, the village of his birth, and traverse the ocean to America, Eick enlisted violinist Gjermund Larsen (a folk musician who has contributed to Christian Wallumrød's ECM recordings), pianist Jon Balke, double bassist Mats Eilertsen, and percussionist Helge Norbakken. The compositions are all lyrical, in typical Eick fashion, but with Larsen they take on a rougher, more earthen quality. The violinist's attention to the instrument's early, raw, root sound lends balance to these melodies, and the interplay between violin and trumpet throughout is not only alluring, but often arresting. On the title track, there is a gently euphoric feel as the lyric unfolds, which, via Larsen's violin and Norbakken's hand shakers (he's a member of the Batagraf ensemble), offers rhythmic and melodic traces of Native American song in contrast. "March," with gorgeous ostinato playing from Balke and halting arco work from Eilertsen, is much more open, embracing mode and rhythm along an improvisational line while Eick's horn takes on a flute-like quality in its lyricism. The tune's feel is not unlike those heard on Pat Metheny's early records for ECM, despite obvious textural and tonal differences. "Dakota"'s percussion evokes the thunder of bison hooves crossing the plains, as the ghostly, minor-key harmonic interplay suggests the spooky, imposing Black Hills. "Fargo," in an obvious nod to the Coen Brothers film, strings together a gentle, lullaby-esque folk song with strains of drama and humor. The darker violin meets Eick's trumpet in the head to contrast the familiar with the mysterious. Balke's lovely solo is particularly suggestive of the latter. Despite the obvious nods to America, Midwest is deliberately more Norwegian in its musical outlook than some of Eick's other recordings. Therefore, it perfectly illustrates the thematic frame of the journey he set out to portray: that of the immigrant encountering the unknown and embracing it, and in the process, creating a new personal and cultural history without forsaking the old one. ecm
Tracklist :
1    Midwest 5'11
(Mathias Eick)
2    Hem 5'14
(Mathias Eick)
3    March 5'53
(Mathias Eick)
4    At Sea 4'03
(Mathias Eick)
5    Dakota 4'55
(Mathias Eick)
6    Lost 5'43
(Mathias Eick)
7    Fargo 6'18
(Mathias Eick)
8    November 5'02
(Mathias Eick)
Credits :
Mathias Eick - Trumpet
Gjermund Larsen - Violin
Jon Balke - Piano
Mats Eilertsen - Double Bass
Helge Norbakken - Percussion

MATHIAS EICK - Skala (2011) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Mathias Eick’s intensely melodic trumpet occupies the centre-stage in this album of self-penned tunes which will appeal to an audience beyond “jazz”. Against the powerful backdrops offered by his sleek, modern band, driven by two drummers, he delivers richly lyrical soliloquies. ecm
Tracklist :
1    Skala 6'14
(Mathias Eick)
2    Edinburgh 5'04
(Mathias Eick)
3    June 4'14
(Mathias Eick)
4    Oslo 5'27
(Mathias Eick)
5    Joni 5'52
(Mathias Eick)
6    Biermann 6'07
(Mathias Eick)
7    Day After 4'52
(Mathias Eick)
8    Epilogue 3'20
(Mathias Eick)
Credits :
Mathias Eick - Trumpet, Vibraphone, Electric Guitar, Upright Bass
Audun Erlien - Electric Bass
Andreas Ulvo - Piano
Torstein Lofthus - Drums
Tore Brunborg - Tenor Saxophone
Gard Nilssen - Drums
Morten Qvenild - Keyboards
Sidsel Walstad - Harp

MATHIAS EICK - The Door (2008) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

It seems strange that The Door on ECM is 29-year-old trumpeter/composer Mathias Eick's debut album as a bandleader. Strange because despite his age, Eick has appeared on over 50 recordings already, five of them -- not including this one -- for ECM in the last four years. But it's not only that Eick is, like many of his generation in Norway, a very diverse musician whose tastes run from jazz to club to rock & roll to funk, it's more that these are all traditions that are opening up to one another in new ways in the 21st century (in Europe at least). Some evidence is in his choice of companions on The Door. Veteran pianist and fellow ECM labelmate Jon Balke is here, as is bassist and guitarist Audun Erlien (a member of Eivind Aarset's recording and touring groups), drummer Audun Kleive, who plays with Balke and Jan Garbarek's groups as well as performing on the Terje Rypdal/Ronni Le Tekrø albums, and the nearly ubiquitous multi-instrumentalist Stian Carstensen on pedal steel on three of the set's eight tunes.

Eick's tone on the trumpet is almost signature. It's warm but explores high registers quite comfortably without sounding thin. His compositions explore the relative boundary-blurring terrains between experimentalist notions, the purer melodies found in the folk musics of his region, and the exploration of various timbral extensions, As a leader he continually engages time and space explorations as the device of depth communication in skeletal but restrained frameworks. One of his lyric influences is certainly his countryman Garbarek. Eick takes a tune like the opening title number and pursues all of its melodic possibilities on his horn and a guitar as his ensemble picks up cues and travels down the same path, albeit at a different pace. On "Cologne Blues," he allows the feeling of both the blues and more elegiac traditional forms to dictate his solo path, even as Carstensen paints the backdrop with atmospheres more akin to arid terrains than these lush moody ones. On "Stavanger," mutant broken beat grooves and slightly angular ideas from Balke pose questions in forms, such as funky pastoral notions where lyric, and more challenging tonal ones encounter shifting rhythmic passages. Yet, as is always the case with Eick, the melodic theme returns in the same way that time is cyclical. Musical architectures and interrogative concepts push at one another inside the spaces he leaves, but they are bridged by his utterly magnificent lyricism.

Eick is an extremely canny player as well as a composer. He can smatter notes with the best of them, but he resists that temptation at every turn on The Door. Instead, he prefers to create quiet, groove-like statements that subtly encourage -- by way of seduction -- the listener's attention, which opens from curiosity to passive acceptance to active participation in each track. This is an excellent introduction to a player who has plenty to say and many ways of saying it. The Door is a beautifully mysterious and deeply satisfying entry in the ECM canon and a very auspicious debut.
(This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa')
Tracklist :
1    The Door 7'52
(Mathias Eick)
2    Stavanger 6'56
(Mathias Eick)
3    Cologne Blues 8'46
(Mathias Eick)
4    October 4'36
(Mathias Eick)
5    December 4'41
(Mathias Eick)
6    Williamsburg 7'20
(Mathias Eick)
7    Fly 4'32
(Mathias Eick)
8    Porvoo 4'13
(Mathias Eick)
Credits :
Mathias Eick - Trumpet, Guitar, Vibraphone
Jon Balke - Piano, Fender Rhodes
Audun Erlien - Electric Bass, Guitar
Audun Kleive - Drums, Percussion
Stian Carstensen - Pedal Steel Guitar