Mikkola

The sixth ECM New Series album by Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür presents two major works, commissioned by the Hessische Rundfunk and given their premieres by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Both works are powered by what Tüür calls his “vectorial writing method”, a means of developing pieces from “a source code - a gene which, as it mutates and grows, connects the dots in the fabric of the whole composition”.

This is music from Norway, from Bergen specifically, written in the early eighteenth century. Composer Georg von Bertouch has an interesting biography; a German-born musician of French extraction, he was also a military leader who participated in 22 battles in Denmark (of which Norway was a part), Germany, and France. A bit older than Bach and Telemann, and geographically even farther removed from the fonts of Italian innovation, he did not (on the evidence of the music here) engage with Vivaldi or with Telemann's galant styles.

Gypsy swing, Latin grooves and beyond by a sensational acoustic quartet from the Åland Islands. WHATCLUB was formed in Winter 2006 by guitarist Richard Palmer, second guitarist Jochum Juslin and acoustic bassist Kjell Dahl. The group initially worked together as a trio, occasionally collaborating with other musicians such as cellist Svante Henryson, violin player Mikko-Ville Luolajan-Mikkola, clarinetist Antti Sarpila and singer Johanna Grüssner. In the spring of 2011, violin player Andreas Nyberg joined the group. Their music is a modernized style of ‘gypsy swing’ or ‘jazz manouche’, a European form of acoustic jazz music, first performed by the Quintette du Hot Club de France in Paris in the 1930s. Apart from traditional swing, the group explores various Latin rhythms such as bolero, rumba and bossa nova.