Eick

Minco Eggersman and Theodoor Borger started collaborating years ago. For this project they're inviting guest musicians to find the pure essence of music with them. They invited Norwegian trumpet player Mathias Eick for their first album UNIFONY. Together, they wander off the beaten track and rediscover purity by experimenting. They don't compose music based on musical notes but they're using carefully crafted layered sounds instead.

Eagerly awaited second ECM album by French-African drummer Manu Katché. Recorded in New York’s Avatar Studio in January 2007, “Playground” picks up where the best-selling “Neighbourhood” left off: in the interim the project has coalesced into a rip-roaring and fully-integrated band. Manu’s group, featuring a Polish/Norwegian confederacy of young players, is energized by his hard driving drums and by his compositions which invite spirited solos… Together, the quintet - whose strong new frontline features Mathias Eick and Trygve Seim - makes exciting, zestful music.

'Never change a winning team' – The old sporting wisdom can also be applied to music: When soul mates and perfectly matched musicians find one another, they are well advised to stick together. 'Liberetto II' by the exceptional Swedish bassist and cellist Lars Danielsson is the living proof. Three years ago he found a quartet with the former e.s.t. drummer Magnus Öström, the British guitarist John Paricelli and most of all as a new dream team duo with Armenian pianist Tigran. It interpreted his compositions and realised his musical ideas more precisely than probably any ensemble before it.

Hoff Ensemble consists of some of Norway's finest jazz and session musicians, fronted by trumpeter Mathias Eick, of ECM renown, who plays a leading role in several of the compositions. The ensemble's basic quartet features legendary veteran bassist Arild Andersen and arranger Jan Gunnar Hoff on piano. The music on Quiet Winter Night is created by film composers Geir Bøhren and Bent Åserud and among the vocalists are some of Norway's top names in popular music: Helene Bøksle, Åsne Valland Nordli, Sondre Bratland, Unni Wilhelmsen, Tomine Harket, Bjørn Johan Muri, Cecilia Vennersten and Bjørn Eidsvåg.

For Lars Danielsson, a consummate craftsman of sound on both cello and bass, the power of music resides in melody. It is the heart from which everything else develops and his Liberetto ensemble has stayed true to this principle again on its third album. The word liberetto, which Danielsson coined for the name of the group, also serves well as a descriptor of his art, a reference both to Western music, the source of his compositions, and to their lyrical, vocal character. But also hidden in the band's name is the Latin adjective liber ("free"). That stands for improvisation, for how individuals can take lines and shapes and adapt them, but above all it refers to Danielsson's musical understanding which acknowledges no boundaries.

Hoff Ensemble consists of some of Norway's finest jazz and session musicians, fronted by trumpeter Mathias Eick, of ECM renown, who plays a leading role in several of the compositions. The ensemble's basic quartet features legendary veteran bassist Arild Andersen and arranger Jan Gunnar Hoff on piano. Hoff has performed with his own group since 1993, collaborating with such artists as Mike Stern, Pat Metheny, Maria Joao and Alex Acuna. This time in this great Norwegian band he mixes flavours in a "cross-over" setting… The music is created by film composers Geir Bøhren and Bent Åserud and among the vocalists are some of Norway's top names in popular music: Helene Bøksle, Åsne Valland Nordli, Sondre Bratland, Unni Wilhelmsen, Tomine Harket, Bjørn Johan Muri, Cecilia Vennersten and Bjørn Eidsvåg.

In our time and age, a jazz singer from Korea may still seem like an exotic concept. But anyone who knows how much effort Asian countries invest in education and promotion also knows about the growing circle of jazz fans in the region. So with notable exceptions it’s astounding that there aren’t more artists from Korea or Japan whose names are on everyone’s lips. However, Youn Sun Nah could change all that, and as the first Korean artist exclusively under contract with ACT, anyone listening to her debut album "Voyage" will understand why.

Batagraf is a stellar ensemble led by Jon Balke, creating percussive explorations and interrogations of words and moods. Previously described by Balke as a “private research forum” rather than a fixed “band”, this has certainly proven to be the case, as the ensemble members have varied from one release to the next. Founded in 2003, “Delights of decay” marks their 15th anniversary. The debut, “Statements” (ECM, 2005) and its follow-up, “Say and Play” (ECM, 2011) have revealed Jon Balke, Helge Andreas Norbakken and Snorre Bjerck as the core membership, as well as clearly illustrating the evolution of ideas and concepts within the project framework as a whole.

Beautifully melancholic: musical expeditions, graceful, flowing and deeply emotionally moving, are bundled by Jacob Karlzon on his new album "Wanderlust". The beauties of his piano melodies and harmonies are like psalms, like vocal lines that draw from rich compositional history, yet turn entirely to the now. "Wanderlust" breathes hope and adventure, the music opens spaces for love and discourse, for spontaneity and structure - contemporary and timeless at the same time.