Streams

“Danish guitarist Jakob Bro creates magical music, impossible to categorize or capture. The songs on Streams are best described as jewels revolving in mid-air, reflecting and refracting light” – Downbeat, Editors Pick (4,5/5 stars) 

“This trio is a highly melodic and unpredictably dramatic outfit.” – John Fordham, The Guardian

On his second leader album for ECM – following on from the prizewinning Gefion – Danish guitarist Jakob Bro continues to refine his trio project, with its emphases on melody, sound, space, layered textures and interaction. The rapport between Bro and Thomas Morgan (Bro calls him “my musical soul mate”) has become something extraordinary, and often guitarist and bassist develop improvisational ideas in parallel. There’s an historical aptness, too, in the choice of Joey Baron as the band’s new drummer, for Bro first encountered Morgan when the bassist was playing in Baron’s band a decade ago…

On Streams Joey Baron dives into the music’s detail with obvious pleasure. This recording features five new Bro pieces: “Opal”, “Full Moon Europa”, “Shell Pink”, “Sisimiut” and “Heroines” (heard in both a trio version and a particularly lovely solo version). Completing the album’s repertoire is the freely improvised “PM Dream”, dedicated to the late Paul Motian. Jakob Bro’s approach to melody acknowledges the influence of Motian, and both Bro and Morgan played in the late drummer’s ensembles.

Recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in November 2015 and produced by Manfred Eicher, Streams is issued on the eve of a major tour by the Bro-Morgan-Baron trio the following years in Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Ukraine, South Korea and Japan, and across the United States including a week at the legendary Village Vanguard.

Recorded at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines, France in November 2015.
Engineered by Gérard de Haro and Nicolas Baillard
Produced by Manfred Eicher.