After three ECM studio albums - Stoa (released in 2006), Holon (2008) and Llyr�a (2010) - comes a double album from Nik B�rtsch's Ronin, recorded around the world. Here are atmospheric selections - from German festivals such as the Enjoy Jazz Festival, the Leipziger Jazztage, and Jazz Baltica, as well as club and concert recordings from Amsterdam's Bimhuis, The Sage in Gateshead, the Vienna Radiokulturhaus and L�rrach's Burghof - that transmit powerfully the live impact of B�rtsch's band and its enveloping modular groove music of interlocking rhythms.
Live moves from one acoustic space to another, yet this album can be experienced as if it were a real-time concert with its own intentionality and sustained, insistent power. The focused playing with its hypnotically-layered rhythms, the production, and the integrity of the source recordings all contribute to a natural sense of continuity. B�rtsch emphasizes that it's an album of music from all over the place, but it's also an album brought together in a studio, to find a logical dramaturgy. Compilation can also be a creative process, and Live is more than a 'document'. Ronin percussionist Andi Pupato recorded all the shows from the stage, and B�rtsch and Manfred Eicher mixed the selected tracks, chosen by the band from more than 50 concerts.
It's also a set that marks the end of an era and the transition into a new one. These are the last recordings of Ronin with Bj�rn Meyer's elegantly-leaping bass guitar as one of the lead voices, and B�rtsch views the album as partly a tribute to Meyer's long tenure with the band. New bassist Thomy Jordi, meanwhile, makes an impressive entrance on Modul 55, but it's most often the whole band, as a unified field of force, that commands the listener's attention.
This music is incredibly exciting in concert. There's such a deep funky, accessible groove to what Ronin do. - Sid Smith reviewing Ronin live in Gateshead ('Postcards From The Yellow Room')
Personnel: Nik B�rtsch (piano), Sha (bass clarinets, alto saxophone), Bj�rn Meyer (bass), Kaspar Rast (drums), Andi Pupato (percussion), Thomy Jordi (bass on Modul 55)
