The drummer-composer Thomas Strønen has been a vital presence on the Nordic contemporary jazz scene since the new millenium. He's a prolific composer of commissioned works and he's known around these parts for his collaborations with Iain Ballamy in duo and the improv-electronica band Food, the late John Taylor, and recently, Kit Downes on his excellent 2015 ECM release Time is a Blind Guide. In contrast to that recording Bayou is a more tonally austere, abstract free-improv endeavour that values space above all. The title track based on a traditional Norwegian folk song by multi-instrumentalist Marthe Lea, with its intro's probing percussion and piano, sets the largely reflective tone of the recording. The rest of the pieces are collective improvisations starting with the pointillist ‘Pasha’, opening up lyrically on ‘Duryea’ with Lea's clarinet and Norwegian-based Japanese pianist Ayumi Tanaka's interlacing darting phrases in a delightfully energetic dialogue occasionally evoking Stravinsky's chamber works. At the sonically contemplative end, Tanaka's resonant piano is Koto-like on ‘Nahla’ and on ‘Chantara’ her chiming chords and prepared piano, Lea's distant vocal hum and Strønen's gestural percussion evoke the serenity of far-east mysticism. An album not easy to warm to, but one with a quietly enigmatic charm all the same.