Sten Sandell & Lisa Ullén - Double Music (2021)

This one is for all the piano lovers overthere. If you’re a fan of the Scandinavian scene, you already know that Sten Sandell is one of the main representatives of that rich cauldron of creative jazz in Europe. And if you’re attentive to what’s new and fresh and creative in the jazzosphere, you already heard about the Korean-born, but living in Stockholm, Lisa Ullén, also a pianist. Yes, this is a piano duo, playing “Double Music” as the title states. And that means you have piano sounds coming from everywhere, as if you were in the middle of the ocean and there’s nothing but water around you and sun above. That’s why the liner notes of the album are… a poem about music as a ship “traveling at the speed of sound through a sea of chords and discord”, on the lookout for “ways of harboring all the harmonics”. Sandell and Ullén sew a fishnet of pure pleasure, letting themselves follow the music where it takes them wave after wave, “finding paths navigable”. And we go with them, unware of the liquid travel, seated at our homes, in Summer bliss.