NIK BÄRTSCH

Nik Bärtsch SOLO PIANO

“A fascinating solo album from the Swiss pianist, composer and conceptualist best known as leader of the bands Ronin and Mobile, Entendre offers deeper insight into Nik Bärtsch’s musical thinking. As the album title implies Entendre is about hearing as a creative process, referencing the patient unfolding of Bärtch’s modular polymetric pieces, with alertness to the dynamics of touch, finding freedom in aesthetic restriction, serving the flow of each piece’s development while also taking the music to new places. Recorded at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, in September 2020, and produced by Manfred Eicher.”

“Entendre” – ECM 2703

Nik Bärtsch’s RONIN 

With the zen-funk quartet RONIN founded in 2001, Nik Baertsch proceeds with the work on his RITUAL GROOVE MUSIC together with Kaspar Rast (drums), Jeremias Keller (he replaced Thomy Jordi in 2020, who replaced Björn Meyer on the bass in 2011) and Sha (bass/contrabass clarinet. Percussionist Andi Pupato joined the band 2002-2012). Their music consistently follows the same aesthetic vision under various instrumental guises: creating the maximum effect by minimal means.

Despite the multiplicity of the band’s influences, Ronin’s music always possesses a strong individuality. They incorporate elements of disparate musical worlds, be they funk, new classical music or sounds from Japanese ritual music.

However, these forms are never merely juxtaposed in a post-modernist fashion but instead amalgamated into a coherent new style. Ultimately, these sounds and rhythms are highly idiosyncratic. The music consists of very few phrases and motives, continually combined and layered in new ways. Ronin thus creates a consistent aesthetic across all levels of musical expression. Composition, phrasing, sound structure, performance, and musical form all combine to form a system of interrelated elements. (Michel Mettler)

The members of Ronin meet every week, as they have done for many years now, to puzzle out the implications of Bärtsch’s pieces in workshops and performances at the Zürich club, Exil.

The group is, says Nik, still coming to terms with the demanding final piece here, “Modul 59”. It is one which, he says, points the way to the future. “It begins from basic ideas, in this case to do with triplets, and builds until it becomes a sort of polyrhythmic, polyphonic carpet of sound. We’ve rehearsed and developed it extensively, and it still keeps surprising us.”

What the media says:

New York Times
Mr Bärtsch, a Swiss pianist, makes accrual-based music of clean power and firm insistence.

Downbeat
Bärtsch’s music of delicious dread is layered, contrapuntal, hypnotic and psychologically fascinating.

Stereogum
Bärtsch’s piano shimmers, one perfectly struck note at a time; drummer Kaspar Rast sets a slow, precisely ticking beat; Haslebacher lets his notes escape slowly and cautiously; and bassist Thomy Jordi is trying his best to disguise himself as Bärtsch’s left hand.

Drownded in Sound
AWASE is the new album by Swiss pianist, composer and record producer Nik Bärtsch. And it’s an apt one. Written and recorded by Bärtsch’s ensemble Ronin, it’s a breathless, carefully-crafted release that blurs the lines between jazz, minimalism, funk and ambient electronica, and one defined by the dynamic, ever-evolving interplay between pianist Bärtsch, bassist Thomy Jordi, drummer Kaspar Rast, and Sha on bass clarinet and alto saxophone.

Guardian
Swiss pianist-composer Nik Bärtsch has been injecting electronica and minimalism with soul, jazzy hipness and danceable bounce with his Ronin Ensemble since 2001, and Awase deepens the group’s expressiveness of tone and texture.

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LINE UP

Nik Bärtsch (piano)

Sha (altosax, bass- and contrabass clarinets)

Kaspar Rast (drums)

Jeremias Keller (bass)

Nik Bärtsch’s MOBILE

RITUAL GROOVE MUSIC is the title of the band`s first CD and, at the same time, contains the essence of Nik Bärtschs musical thought. The purely acoustic music is full of surprising turns and bold combinations. The ingredients from funk, new classical music as well as elements of Japanese ritual music are combined to produce an exiting sound mixture, at times funky, at times ambientlike and relaxed and then again dramatically charged. It is a sound world of raw poetry, propelled  by obsessive motion.

The compositions leave room for a variety of phrasing, which is readily exploited by the very diverse musical personalities that constitute the band. The drummer Kaspar Rast, with his powerful groove, is as much at home in jazz and funk contexts as in the studio. Alt saxophonist and bass clarinettist Sha captivates the listener through rhythmic refinement and implacable calm and has already earned a reputation as a newcomer in the New Minimal scene. Percussionist Nicolas Stocker belongs to the new generation of modern musicians who naturally combine the competence for classical interpretation, improvisation and the ability to groove. Nik Bärtsch, the inspirational don of MOBILE, easily crosses the borders between all of the above codes, setting connections which in turn mutate to fuses.

LINE UP

Nik Bärtsch (piano)

Sha (altosax, bass- and contrabass clarinets)

Nicolas Stocker (drums)

2021 Entendre

2018 Awase

2016 Continuum

2012 Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin Live

2010 Llyria

2008 Holon

2006 Stoa

2004 Aer

2004 Rea

2003 Live

2002 Hishiryo: Piano Solo

2002 Randori

2001 Ritual Groove Music