Manafonistas

Can you bewray something by writing about music? Reveal, yes, but bewray, betray? So that, by hearing, you already have the formula at hand, before your eyes, dissolved? Don’t think so. It’s different with plots. Storylines. So even a thousand words can only hint at the magic of a great record, something about its whereabouts, the structure behind the surface, hidden subtexts. Might be telling, but could never replace the act of listening. Always good then to have stories in the bag for wrapping them around the music like an invisble glove always prepared to fall apart, or – best case – to linger on Memory Lane like something your thoughts might recur to (for seconds) when listening. So here are two records that are, in my ears, really great records, and I won’t tell a thing. Though it would be easy. But for now, I’m just exercising restraint. You cannot program magic. So even the actors (musicians, producer) must have had their moments here where they didn’t trust their ears. Stunned, so to speak. True that! So, for the moment, I’m leaving you alone with the titles of two forthcoming ECM albums produced by Manfred Eicher at the Rainbow Studio in Oslo. Class performances. Awesome sequencing of tracks. Oh, sorry, I seem to sabotage my premeditations. The one is by guitarist Jakob Bro (guitar, bass and drums); and the other one by kantelele player and singer Sinika Langeland (with viola, saxophone and percussion). But, no, it’s not a song album, in the sense Eno’s „Another Green World“ is not a song album either.  Both reords wil be released on February 6th. All stories will be told on February 5th, in „JazzFacts“, and on February 21st in „Radionacht Klanghorizonte“, my next two appearances in the Deutschlandfunk. The titles of these Nordic pieces of excellence (the only one from outside Scandinavia is bass player Thomas Morgan): „Gefion“, and (well, some resonating sort of punchline at the end of not telling any stories!), „The half-finished heaven“.