Trumpeter Mathias Eick is a rather untypical representative of Nordic jazz. He stands out from the local scene mainly due to his atmospheric melodies, in which he tends to avoid melancholy. Ravensburg, his latest album, crowns his journey from alented youth to mature artist with unique musical expression.
On his most recent album, as is sually the case, the Norwegian musician draws inspiration from his own life. Where his earlier albums evoked a lifestyle full of travel, discovery and search for new goals, Ravensburg’s leitmotif is now the family: „My inspiration was my family, my beloved wife, my little children who never cease to amaze me, and all the emotional situations that we experience on stage with my other family – the band,” explains ick. The trumpeter, composer and bandleader also played a new role on the new album by adding vocals to is portfolio. His singing is all the more emotional for being wordless. “I‘ve been singing to my children for seven years. And I thought it might be nice to try adding the human voice. Although I have always argued that my voice is my trumpet, singing, especially in conjunction with the violin played in our band by Håkon Aase, works perfectly. Håkon’s playing is a perfect fit for my voice,” said Eick in an interview with UNI magazine, and his words are confirmed by numerous positive reviews on his fourth album with the prestigious ECM label. Though Eick’s work has been changing under the influence of his life experiences, one thing has not changed ever since he started; Mathias Eick is a musician who confirms with each new composition that jazz, as a genre, is open to the full range of life’s influences.
Daniel Brandt, co-founder of Germany’s electroacoustic ensemble Brandt Brauer Frick, joins the Erased Tapes family with his solo debut album Eternal Something – released worldwide on March 24th 2017.
What started off as a more simplistic idea soon evolved into something a lot more complex as the London and Berlin based music producer travelled across the world, experimenting with various other artists and different instruments. From his father’s cabin based in the German countryside with access to nothing but cymbals, to being surrounded by guitars in Joshua Tree, his unexpected journey soon progressed into what became his first solo album. Daniel played nearly all instruments himself with the only exception being fellow musicians Florian Juncker on trombone, Manu Delago on hang drum and Andreas Voss on cello. Using his Berlin studio as his main base for recording, Brandt created an album that encapsulates the idea that despite setting out with a particular creative vision, external influences and environments will always shift the process, and create an Eternal Something.
“The initial idea was to make a cymbal album. I wanted to surround myself with all types of cymbals. I locked myself into my father’s cabin in the woods for three days. That was the moment I realised it was not possible for me to make an album just with cymbals because other ideas and instruments imposed themselves on me. I had a clear sense of what I wanted to do now. The intention was to let the songs evolve by themselves and not edit too much, keep it raw and have an explosion-like energy to them.”
