Le vent Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret & Julian Sartorius

• 1 Juuichi 06:11
• 2 Immobile 06:27
• 3 Le vent 05:54
• 4 Cendre 06:09
• 5 Fade 05:17
• 6 Goodbye 05:34
• 7 Le quai 05:12
• 8 Pixels 04:54
• 9 Altalena 03:56
• 10 Rouge 06:07
• 11 Styx 02:26
• 12 Coriolis 02:06
• Total Runtime 01:00:13

Info for Le vent

Le Vent, recorded in April 2013 at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio, is the second ECM album from the Colin Vallon Trio. Like the wind celebrated in its title track, the group has a subtle, insinuating power. Emerging from a still and silent place, its music can breathe gently, or steadily build pressure until attaining an eruptive forcefulness. This combining of poetic compression and quiet relentlessness was evident on the ECM debut Rruga three years ago, but with leader Vallon now writing almost all of the repertoire (although opening tune “Juuichi” is by Patrice Moret), and new drummer Julian Sartorius detailing its floating rhythms, the Swiss trio has entered a brave new space where touch and inflection are decisively more important than soloistic gesture. Melodies, unfolding slowly, are shared between Moret’s bass and Vallon’s piano. A fresh group language is being developed here, extended in the group improvisations which close the set.

Colin Vallon (born 1980 in Lausanne) has been leading his own bands since 1999. Patrice Moret (born in Aigle in 1972), joined Vallon’s trio in 2004. Pianist and bassist have also honed their musical understanding as members of Albanian singer Elina Duni’s quartet (see the ECM album Matinë Malit), where improvisation frequently takes place outside of jazz’s frame of reference. Vallon has often said that vocalists have influenced him more than other pianists. Disinterested in technical display, he savours the sound and texture of each resonant chord, each carefully placed note, as the trio’s searching improvisations move forward.

Describing Rruga in Stereophile magazine, Thomas Conrad wrote that its music was “exhilarating in its moment-to-moment open possibility and its counterintuitive relationships between freedom and structure. Themes emerge and transform and dissolve...” In Britain’s The Independent, Tim Cumming spoke of spare piano and percussive figures which could propel a listener “into vast underworlds of inexorable forces.” The idea of a lyrical-minimal, softly pulsating music with an accumulatively powerful undertow is more fully developed on Le Vent, and Julian Sartorius puts himself in service to the group concept and sense of energy flow. Sartorius (born 1981 in Thun), has been playing drums since he was 5 years old, studied with teachers including Pierre Favre, and has developed some advanced rhythmic concepts of his own. Adept at responding to any context, his recordings under his own name include his epic Beat Diary, 12 LPs of solo percussion documenting a year of rhythmic travel.

Colin Vallon, piano
Patrice Moret, double bass
Julian Sartorius, drums

Recorded April 2013 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineered by Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Colin Vallon
(born 1980 in Lausanne) has been leading his own bands since 1999. Patrice Moret (born in Aigle in 1972) joined Vallon’s group in 2004. Rruga, recorded in 2010 was the third Vallon trio album and its first for ECM, immediately greeted by positive press. The musical understanding between Vallon and Moret has been further honed inside Albanian singer Elina Duni’s quartet (see the albums Matinë Malit and Dallëndyshe), another place where improvisation flowers outside jazz’s frame of reference. Vallon has often said that singers have influenced him more than other jazz instrumentalists. Beyond the trio he writes music for diverse ensembles and choreographers. Vallon and Moret play also in saxophonist Nicolas Masson’s group Parallels.

In addition to the centring power of his bass, Patrice Moret has contributed striking compositions to the trio repertoire, in this case the kinetic motoric piece “Tinguely”.

Julian Sartorius
has been drummer with Vallon’s trio for more than four years, joining in time for the recording of Le Vent. Born in Thun in 1981, Sartorius had his first drum lessons at the age of 5, and later studied at the jazz schools of Lucerne and Bern with teachers including Pierre Favre and Norbert Pfammatter. He has collaborated with Matthew Herbert, Shahzad Ismaily, Sylvie Courvoisier, Dimlite, Merz, Fred Frith, Sophie Hunger, Rhys Chatham and many others.

“This is highly original music… Vallon’s project has something to with how we perceive time in music – and music in time. It’s fascinating and accrues more and more interest with repeated listening.” - Paul De Barros, Downbeat

Booklet for Le vent