Christian Wallumrod Trio - No Birch (1998)

Tracklist

01. She Passes The House Of Her Grandmother
02. The Birch 1
03. Royal Garden
04. Somewhere East
05. Travelling
06. The Birch 2
07. Ballimaran
08. Watering
09. Before Church
10. The Birch 3
11. Two Waltzing, One Square And Then
12. Fooling Around
13. The Gardener
14. The Birch 4

Musicians:
Christian Wallumrod - piano
Arve Henriksen - trumpet
Hans-Kristian Kjos Sorensen - percussion

Pianist Christian Wallumrod makes his ECM debut with No Birch, an album of uncompromising melodic integrity and further proof that ECM’s mining of Nordic jazz ore continues to yield sonic jewelry like no other. The press release places the album somewhere between Morton Feldman minimalism and Paul Bley free play, and certainly we can feel a likeminded appreciation for negative space throughout. Yet beyond this lies an active, fluttering heart that is so full of expressivity that it must pace itself in lieu of bursting. --Tyran Grillo