Benjamin Moussay

After three acclaimed ECM recordings with Louis Sclavis (Sources, Salt and Silk Melodies, and Characters on a Wall), each of them attesting his improvisational resourcefulness, French pianist Benjamin Moussay was invited to record a solo album. Promontoire is the result, a thoughtful, reflective and profoundly lyrical album that is both a strikingly original statement and an admirable addition to ECM’s distinguished solo piano series. Produced by Manfred Eicher, and recorded at Studios la Buissonne in January 2019.

This perfectly harmonising duo focuses on strong contrasts and thrives on empathy and intense exchanges. – Deutschlandfunk. Having previously joined forces on several Louis Sclavis recordings for ECM, including the clarinettist’s last album Characters On A Wall, in recent years Sclavis and pianist Benjamin Moussay increasingly focused on their two-way communication, playing expansive and well-received concerts throughout Europe. Now, in a programme of originals – two-thirds from the pianist’s pen, the remaining third by the clarinettist – the French duo dreams up a world of chamber conversations that juxtaposes lyrical contemplation with whimsical inventiveness in a joyous, concentrated collaboration. Thoughtfully, the duo envelopes delicate themes in warm improvisations that never rush, but patiently explore the written material with rare creativity and in fluid dialogues. Recorded at Studios La Buissonne, Southern France in March 2024, Unfolding was produced by Manfred Eicher.

Louis Sclavis’s 13th ECM recording finds the French clarinetist drawing inspiration from two sources – the street art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, and the interpretive originality of a splendid new quartet. Pignon-Ernest’s works were previously the subject of Sclavis’s highly acclaimed 2002 recording Napoli’s Walls. This time Sclavis looks at a broader range of the artist’s in situ collages from Ramallah to Rome, in search of “a dynamic, a movement that will give birth to a rhythm, an emotion, a song.”