Thomas Strønen, geboren 1972 in Oslo, ist einer jener Schlagzeuger, die wissen, dass ihr Können das beweist, was sie an perkussiver Technik abfeuern, ihre Kunst indes das, was sie auslassen. Strønen ist ein Meister des Zwischenraums. […] Strønens Kunst des Schweigens hat freilich eine kommunikative, ja provokative Seite. Zehn der zwölf kurzen Piecen sind nämlich Duos mit ausgewählten Partnern. […] So ist auf ‘Relations’ Craig Taborn präsent, einer der prägenden Pianisten der jüngeren Generation, mal mit heftig virtuosen Einwürfen, mal mit subtilen Klangarchitekturen; Chris Potter ist der gewohnt finessenreiche, markant sonore Tenor- und Sopransaxofonist; die subtile Sängerin und Kantele-Spielerin Sinikka Langeland kommt aus Norwegen und dem Polarkreis nordischer Folklore; und Jorge Rossi, gemeinhin bekannt als Drummer und Vibraphonist, hören wir hier am Piano, auf dem er seine perkussive Herkunft freilich nicht verleugnet. Alle reagieren auf Strønens weiträumig angelegte, provokativ sparsame Perkussion verschieden, aber alle so intensiv, dass jedes der kurzen Stücke Hunger auf mehr hinterlässt. Das gilt auch für die beiden Solonummern von Strønen, zu denen gewissermaßen unsere Fantasie als Duo-Partner herausgefordert ist.
Peter Rüedi, Weltwoche
As the pandemic curtailed opportunities for live music, the drummer felt that it would be good idea to send some of the percussion tracks to other musicians to see what they would bring to the music. Strønen also took onboard Eicher’s advice to send the tracks to musicians that he had not worked with before. The result is an intriguing set of pieces, two solo pieces for drums and percussion and ten duets with four musicians from Europe and the US. […] The different working methods of the participants has therefore created music that is vastly contrasting in nature, with the most hard hitting and direct music coming not surprisingly from Chris Potter and Craig Taborn in the US. […] on careful and repeated listening there is much to enjoy.
Nick Lea, Jazz Views
Conceived over a four year period, Norwegian drummer/percussionist Thomas Strønen’s “Relations” is an unusual and rather unorthodox album. Bringing together kindred spirits from scattered compass points and traditions, the album is both a thoughtful collection of duos and solos and an improviser’s response to circumstances. At the core of things is Strønen’s percussion playing, heard alone and joined by Craig Taborn or Jorge Rossy on piano, Chris Potter on saxophones, and the voice and kantele of Sinikka Langeland. The contributors, in some cases, took opposite approaches to the work. Sinikka Langeland, coming from the aural traditions of Nordic folk music, committed the percussion pieces to memory before adding her kantele and her singing. Craig Taborn, on the other hand, as a dedicated real time improviser and spontaneous composer, decided not to listen to the drum music at all before recording, and dived in from the first second, responding in the moment. Listening through the entire album, it is intriguing to hear how each of the musicians apply a different philosophy when contributing […] An interesting album, ‘Relations’ draws the listener in with its different styles and unique sound. Strønen’s performance throughout is sublime, offering up a full spectrum of percussive beats and textures for the listener to enjoy.
Mike Gates, UK Vibe
Between 2018 and 2022, Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen invited four accomplished musicians to contribute to his latest album, ‘Relations’. Each responded to pre-recorded drum tracks with complete creative freedom. Pianist Craig Taborn and saxophonist Chris Potter recorded their parts from New York, vocalist and kantele player Sinikka Langeland from Oslo, and Barcelona-born multi-instrumentalist Jorge Rossy, playing piano exclusively, from Basel. The resulting work comprises two solo percussion tracks and ten duets that, while not adhering to conventional jazz formats, explore unique sonic landscapes. […] Relations eschews conservatism, offering unexpected surprises and intimate dialogues between Strønen’s broad rhythmic vocabulary and his collaborators’ distinctive voices. Although sounding off-beat at times, this work reflects the spirit of innate improvisers, unafraid to present something refreshingly different.
Filipe Freitas, Jazz trail
What with the marvel of John Surman’s guitar and vibes speckled Words Unspoken and this work of his own it’s been an especially good year to be a fan of Norwegian drummer-composer Thomas Strønen in terms of long distilled output and glimpses of the latest work from a remarkable musical mind. Long on the radar of some British jazz fans because of his association with another Englishman the great saxophonist Iain Ballamy in the band Food, Strønen follows a unique path. […] Strung together over four years it’s an album of duets and besides Langeland whose contributions are at the heart of the album hugely contrastive contributions from Craig Taborn, Chris Potter and Jorge Rossy (on piano) shape shift amiably. In Taborn’s case it’s very much a highly abstract vision that hovers on a genre-less cloud. The American pianist has a habit of finding the exact impossibly cool and unexpected chordal poetitude to drift away to. Fellow countryman of Taborn’s Potter finds an idiom that is more mystical than usual emerging from a sort of miasma on ‘Ephemeral’ and where Strønen changes in reaction to rattle off a chattering, hypnotic motion. […] ‘Relations’ is an interesting album. It makes me feel real gone as if hit by a bow and arrow and draws so many strands together acting like a cleansing and reset of elements. ‘Arc for Drums’ has a grandeur to it achieved quite organically.
Stephen Graham, Marlbank
If by any chance you read my recent ‘best of 2024’ post, you may have noticed, among the new musical releases, the inclusion of an album entitled ‘Relations’, attributed to Thomas Strønen, Craig Taborn, Chris Potter, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy. That would be a rather eccentric line-up for a group – a Norwegian percussionist, an American pianist, an American saxophonist, a Norwegian singer and kantele-player, and a Spanish percussionist-pianist. But such a band doesn’t exist, since the album consists almost entirely of duets, in which Strønen (who contributes two solo tracks) is accompanied on two tracks each by Taborn and Potter, and on three each by Langeland and Rossy. That’s an unusual format for an album, but actually it’s even more intriguing that that. Only after I’d listened to the album several times, enjoying it a great deal, did I learn of its unusual genesis, whereby none of the duets was recorded with the performers in the same studio. Indeed, they weren’t even playing at the same time. Which may call into question some of our assumptions about musical interplay. […] The album is inevitably (and pleasingly) varied – Taborn thoughtful, mercurial, dazzling, always appropriate; Potter prayer-like, forthright, forceful or ecstatic; Langeland lyrical, elemental, sparkling, somehow timeless; Rossy with a percussionist’s sure sense of space, timbre and dynamics – as are Strønen’s originals (including his two solos), But these terrific musicians are all alert to the many nuances that can be achieved by the imaginative juxtaposition of two instruments, and it’s that sensibility that holds Relations gloriously and compellingly together. It’s an album packed with subtlety and surprise, a product of open-minded curiosity and creative empathy. In short, despite its unusual provenance, it works.
Geoff Andrew, Notes & Observations
Das Album beginnt nun mit dem meditativen Solo-Stück ‘Confronting Silence’, in dem Strønen eindrücklich die Wirkmacht der Stille und der Pausen zwischen flirrenden Gongs, vibrierenden Becken und tiefem Trommeldonner zu Gehör bringt – auch seine zweite Solo-Performance ‘Arc of Drums’ liegt auf dieser Schiene. […] Der vielbeschäftigte Tastenstar Craig Taborn hörte sich die Perkussions-Vorgaben gar nicht erst lange an, sondern nahm quasi beim ersten Anhören die Stimmung spontan auf und schüttelte höchst kreativ seine pianistischen Einwürfe aus dem Ärmel – in ‘Pentagonal Garden’ vorsichtig tastend, in ‘The Axiom of Equality’ mit viel Gespür für freifließende Dramatik. Die norwegische Kantele-Virtuosin, Sängerin und Musikwissenschafterin Sinikka Langeland, auf deren exzellentem Quintett-Album ‘Wind and Sun’ (2023) Strønen mittlerweile zu hören war, hat hingegen die zugesandten Perkussion-Files genauestens studiert, ehe sie der traditionellen nordischen Kastenzither ihre magisch-feinsinnigen Töne entlockte, einen unter die Haut gehenden Klagegesang anstimmte und schließlich mit zeitgenössisch anmutenden, elektrisierenden Klängen auf der Kantele abschloss. Die drei direkt aneinander gereihten Passagen machen als akustisches Triptychon das Zentrum des Albums aus, während die Beiträge der anderen Musiker niemals direkt nacheinander platziert sind. Chris Potter siedelte sein kraftvoll-expressives Tenor-Sax auf ‘Weaving Loom’ tief in der amerikanischen Jazz-Geschichte an, während er sein Sopran-Sax in ‘Ephemeral’ in mit östlichem Flair aufgeladener Ekstase schwelgen ließ. […] Thomas Strønen und Manfred Eicher haben die zwölf zwischen knapp zwei und gut vier Minuten langen Stücke schließlich in einer perfekten Reihenfolge angeordnet, was sie wie aus einem Guss wirken lässt und ein höchst abwechslungsreiches Hörvergnügen garantiert.
Peter Füssl, Zeitschrift für Kultur und Gesellschaft
Un disco d’altri tempi, che riporta indietro le lancette dei nostri orologi di mezzo secolo, cioè agli anni Settanta, ma senza alcun senso di nostalgia né il minimo anacronismo. È lo spirito esplorativo di quell’epoca che rivive nei trentasei minuti di ‘Relations’, un titolo quanto mai efficace per raccontare la genesi e lo sviluppo di un progetto astratto e articolato, sulla falsariga della miglior tradizione dell’etichetta tedesca. (…) I dialoghi con i sax tenore e soprano di Potter fanno tornare in mente gli ‘spazi interstellari’ di John Coltrane e Rashied Ali, mentre gli interventi pianistici di Taborn e Rossy (che per l’occasione lascia la batteria per il vibrafono) ci spingono verso i territori e le dinamiche della libera improvvisazione.
Ivo Franchi, Musica Jazz
This album is also a fine contemporary take on the micro-tradition of drummer-plus-one-other, a small but robust element in the development of (mostly) modern jazz that has attracted sticks players from Max Roach to Stu Martin and beyond. The programme sees Strønen working on a set of concise but often intense near-miniatures with various individual partners, including saxophonist Chris Potter and pianist Craig Taborn, alongside some thoughtful solo pieces. The results are highly satisfying.
Roger Thomas, BBC Music Magazine
Bei der Mehrzahl der Stücke fokussiert sich der 52-jährige Norweger auf ‘Relations’ und geht Beziehungen mit einem wechselnden Gegenüber ein. Die Pianisten Craig Taborn und Jorge Rossy konterkarieren das flirrende Schlagwerk mit eigenen Tupfern, die an die Gemälde von Jackson Pollock erinnern, während Chris Potter zu opulenteren Farbflächen tendiert. Spannend ist der Dialog Strønens mit Sinikka Langeland, die sich mit ihrer Stimme und der Kantele (finnische Zither) symbiotisch in diesen Klangraum einfügt und so dazu beiträgt, dass wundersame Nordlichter aufleuchten. Die herausragende Qualität dieser Aufnahmen, die eine spürbare Dreidimensionalität vermitteln, macht deses Album zu einem rundum gelungenen Hochgenuss.
Rudolf Amstutz, Jazz’n’more
