#jon balke

[jt1674]

Visit Original Link

[musicollage]

Masqualero – Bande À Part. 1986 : ECM 1319.

[ support the artist ★ buy me a coffee ]

[dustedmagazine]

Jon Balke — Discourses (ECM)

Listening to Norwegian pianist Jon Balke’s new solo album kept bringing to mind the lyrics Al Jarreau performed to Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk”: ”Melody married to harmony, one and the same.” The pianist’s harmonic sense is as melodic as a lover of arpeggiation could possibly manage, and even his miles-long lines imply as many tonal centers as they then eschew, but Balke’s love of sound ensures that Discourses operates on more intricately disunified levels than the mere wedding of elements you’d find in Music Theory 101.

If the piece titles are indicative, the album is constructed as a semi-linear series of philosophical or political arguments, a characteristic that carries over into the declamatory nature of the music. The second of the “Afterthoughts” subseries is a case in point; melodic disjuncture conceals just as many semisolid harmonic cases made and then jettisoned with equal rapidity. “Assumptions,” from earlier in the disc, is even more tantalizing in that it’s key is subtly and nearly imperceptibly disrupted throughout as Balke’s deft pianism introduces pitches that don’t quite burst the tonal bubble he’s so painstakingly constructed with deliciously broken chords.

Arpeggiation seasoned with constantly varying shades of articulation, all caught by that wonderful ECM engineering, is a hallmark of Balke’s playing and of his love for elusive sonics. Like Warp before it, this album is suffused with sound but often at a surprisingly low level, a kind of world beneath the world evoked by the myriad forces behind strings and hammers. Balke’s use of electronic processing is akin to Tony Oxley’s as the most delicately diverse simultaneities pervade extremities of the sound spectrum. The relationship between these Protean eddies and streams to what he’s playing is as complex as it is fascinating, blurring rationale even while reconstructing it. “The First Argument”’s piano component ripples, cajoles and muscles its way forward in fits and starts only to peter out, but beneath the surface, in a whole other tonal area, some sort of baroque sediment emits the corrosive gas that destroys syntax. Yet, the opposition is so subtle, so sublime as it overtakes only to disappear, but is it backwards piano from some other point on the album? Whatever it is, the contrast is both complete and effective. The third “Afterthought” employs the same percussively liquid backdrop as the first, bringing another level of unity to a disc replete with multiplicities and completely elucidating the album’s title.  

The delicacies so integral to Balke’s work roll back on repeated listening, opening the way to a universe of half-realized possibility sufficient unto itself. Sub-frequencies roar while never losing the grace suffusing them, and each tone’s melodic and harmonic implications become clear only in the often-illusory context afforded by its neighbor. The resulting soundscapes form paths dimly lit until they’re not, until moments of brightness throw all arguments and positions into the stark relief the most creative art makes manifest.  

Marc Medwin

[colouredhorizons]

[jt1674]

Visit Original Link

[tejedac]

Jon Balke & Amina Alaoui

Siwan, 2009 · https://spoti.fi/30Qp1ol

Jon Balke (Keyboards), Amina Alaoui (vocals), Jon Hassell (trumpet), Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche (violin).

Barokksolistene & Bjarte Eike (violin, conductor).

ECM 2042 * Lp info: https://bit.ly/30O1HI1

[mauradusus]

"Jon Balke – Nahnou Houm, Siwan | ECM Records"

[thoregil]

Mektig musikk av Jon Balke skrevet rundt dikt av Yusef Komunyakaa.

Jon Balke – komponist og elektronikk Christian Eggen – dirigent Asle Karstad – lyddesign

Trondheim Voices: Sissel Vera Pettersen, Siri Gjære, Tone Åse, Live Maria Roggen, Kari Eskild Havenstrøm, Anita Kaasbøll, Torunn Sævik, Heidi Skjerve

TrondheimSolistene: Fioliner: Viktor Stenhjem, Anna Vestad, Stefan Penjin, Eira Foss, Ivan Penjin, Tora Stølan Ness, Åse Våg Aaknes, Anna Sonstad, Rannveig Ryeng Bratsj: Anne Våg Aaknes, Bergmund Waal Skaslien, Kirsten Næss Cello: Marit Aspås, Karoline Brevik, Live Smidt Bass: Rolf Hoff Baltzersen

2020-07-17 Trondheim Voices & TrondheimSolistene: Anodyne/A World of Daughters – Molde Domkirke, Moldejazz Mektig musikk av Jon Balke skrevet rundt dikt av Yusef Komunyakaa. Jon Balke - komponist og elektronikk…