''Stoa'' is an album by Swiss pianist and composer

Nik Bärtsch Nik Bärtsch (born 3 August 1971) is a Swiss pianist, composer, bandleader, record producerNastos, Michael GAllmusic: Nik Bärtsch Biography accessed May 25, 2018 and author from Zürich. Career Bärtsch studied piano and Percussion instrumen ...

's band Ronin that was recorded in France in 2005 and released by

ECM Records ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...

Reception

The

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

review by Thom Jurek states, "ECM has raised the bar once more by recording and releasing a truly compelling, curious, maddening, and provocative Edition of Creative Musicians with ''Stoa''. Ronin is a band of the future, one that has nowhere to go but out into the sonic stratosphere. Judging by this set, it will be exciting to witness where they go from here." On

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

Budd Kopmann stated "With no melodies and virtually no harmony, but with plenty of constantly internally clashing rhythm, this music's motivic development pushes you one moment and pulls the next. Whether or not you would call it jazz, its kaleidoscopic nature and simple complexity is riveting. Fabulous." On the same site John Kelman noted "''Stoa'' is an important album that stands to expand the way we look at the junctures between repetitive motifs, insistent rhythms and form-based improvisation." ''Global Rhythm'' magazine's podcast producer, host, and contributing writer wrote, "Global grooves, mercurial melodies, plucky polyrhythms and hypnotic happenings abound on this impressive release by Swiss jazz and neo-classical pianist/composer Nik Bärtsch. 'Zen Funk' is how Bärtsch describes his oftentimes Eastern-influenced music, and indeed, the various tracks, simply entitled 'Modul 36' or 'Modul 33,' are metaphysical musical koans of sorts. He is joined by his remarkable band, Ronin: drummer Kaspar Rast, 6-string bassist Björn Meyer, percussionist Andi Pupato, and reedsman, Sha. Imagine an aural geometrical kaleidoscope upon which multiple layers synchronously rotate and morph in a subtle, albeit complex dance. James Brown jamming with Steve Reich, perhaps? Throughout, Meyer and Rast comprise the unerring gyroscopic motor driving Bärtsch's tightly knit compositions, providing Bärtsch and company interspersed space in which to amble. Bärtsch's piano is the axle, as he double-handedly plays contrasting, interlocking patterns in real time, often punctuated by Sha's woodwinds (bass clarinet and tenor saxophone) accents. Repeated listen reveals more depth and complexity with each go around. Very well done!"

Track listing

All compositions by Nik Bärtsch # "Modul 36" - 15:17 # "Modul 35" - 9:11 # "Modul 32" - 9:32 # "Modul 33" - 10:42 # "Modul 38_17" - 12:30

Personnel

—

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

* Sha -

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

contrabass clarinet The contrabass clarinet (also pedal clarinet, after the pedals of pipe organs) and contra-alto clarinet are the two largest members of the clarinet family that are in common usage. Modern contrabass clarinets are transposing instruments pitched ...

* Björn Meyer —

6-string bass An extended-range bass is an electric bass guitar with a wider frequency range than a standard-tuned four-string bass guitar. Terminology One way that a bass can be considered 'extended-range' is to use a tuning machine mechanism that allows fo ...

* Kaspar Rast -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

* Andi Pupato —

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

References

{{Authority control ECM Records albums Nik Bärtsch albums 2006 albums Albums produced by Manfred Eicher