Stefan Aeby Trio - To the Light (2016)

Acclaimed Swiss pianist and composer Stefan Aeby presents with his trio his debut on Intakt Records as a bandleader. His excellent new album "to the light" with bass player Andre Pousaz and drummer Michi Stulz has a clear, unique identity. The trio follows a free vision of minimal sound art, leaving space and time to react to each other, and to revel in the sounds. Florian Keller writes in the liner notes: "to build their multi-layered sound architecture, these three music fanatics avoid the weight of the monumental, instead using their atmospheric musicianship to create a soundtrack for the poetry of the unobtrusive. the magic of this expansive music lies in a courageous aesthetic of modesty, which favours fine-fingered sensitivity over the muscular gestures of musical high-performance sport, and thus a statement against the thundering excesses of spectacle. yet this graceful sonic art is indeed spectacular in its filigree way. Unpretentiously, the trio have cultivated a kind of gallant tiptoe. the principle is to play softly and generate tension walking on velvet paws. this urgent ensemble music often creates its magic through a calmness bordering on silence."