Terje Rypdal's first new album in 20 years and 1970s classics among ECM releases

The new album, Conspiracy, is Rypdal’s first since the live recording Crime Scene in 2010 and was released on 11 September on CD and vinyl. As well as Rydal on Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, Conspiracy features Ståle Storløkken on keyboards; Endre Hareide Hallre on electric bass; and Pål Thowsen on drums and percussion – and Conspiracy is also the name of his new group. It was recorded at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio early last year, and mixed there in January 2020 by producer Manfred Eicher, Terje Rypdal and engineer Martin Abrahamsen. It is the guitarist’s first studio record since 2000’s Lux Aeterna, his other 21st century recordings being culled from concerts.

ECM has also announced the reissue of four Rypdal recordings from the 1970s – albums which helped to establish the guitarist. These are the eponymously titled Terje Rypdal (recorded 1971), What Comes After (1973), Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away (1974) and Descendre (1979). All have been slated for reissue in mid to late October on ECM’s Touchstone imprint. Among the artists featured on these recordings are: Barre Phillips (bass); Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg; drummer Jon Christensen; Mladen Gutesha, the Sarajevo-born conductor and arranger; powerhouse bass guitarist Sveinung Hovensjø; and trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.

Rypdal made his first appearance on ECM as a member of the Jan Garbarek Quartet on Afric Pepperbird (recorded in Oslo in September 1970), and was encouraged by label head/producer Manfred Eicher to make his own album the following year. This led to a half-century association with the label, which continues to this day.

Also, this month, ECM releases La Traversée, the first album as leader from French tenor saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave; accompanied by Florian Weber on piano and Patrice Moret on double bass. ECM says that Bordenave ‘explores an area between contemporary chamber music and jazz, subtly influenced by the innovations of the Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow who opened new territory that remains relevant for improvisers today’. La Traversée was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in October 2019; produced by Manfred Eicher, it’s released on 25 September.

A week earlier, Polish pianist Dominik Wania releases on LP and CD his first ECM solo album, Lonely Shadows.

Born in 1981 in Sanok in Southern Poland’s Podkarpacie region, Wania started playing piano when he was three years old. He subsequently studied in Kraków and graduated from its Academy of Music in 2005. Jazz was also a presence in his life from an early age and in 2006 he won a scholarship to study it at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where his teachers included Danilo Pérez, Jerry Bergonzi, Ran Blake and George Garzone. His debut recording as a leader, Ravel, released in 2013, used Maurice Ravel’s Miroirs as its starting point, and he has gone on to shape a space for himself as a classically trained player who has found fulfilment and artistic focus in improvised music. Completely improvised with no preparation, Lonely Shadows was recorded in Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in November 2019 and produced by Eicher.

Finally, also on 18 September, ECM released French double bassist Michel Benita’s Looking at Sounds, which features Matthieu Michel (flugelhorn); Jozef Dumoulin (Fender Rhodes, electronics); and Philippe Garcia: drums, electronics. At the heart of the French jazz scene since the early 1980s, Benita honed his craft in the clubs and concert halls of Paris, working with an ever-changing cast of visiting stars, local players and expatriates. The original bassist in France’s Orchestre National de Jazz, he has recorded with ECM before, notably on Andy Sheppard’s Trio Libero. His first disc as a leader for the label was River Silver, recorded in 2015, with his group Ethics. Looking At Sounds was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, France, in March 2019.

For more info visit www.ecmrecords.com