CD ECM Records Ketil Bjornstad: Water Stories

1993
Ketil Bjornstad - pian
Terje Rypdal - chitara electrica
Jon Christensen - tobe
Bjorn Kjellemyr - bas
Per Hillestad - tobe

[AllMusic] Truly an inspirational album, one of Bjornstad's best. Melancholy and impetuous at times, a rise and fall, like the waves in this water-inspired north story. Bjornstad's beautiful harmonies, subtle changes and poetic imagination meet Rypdal's other-worldly, alien tonalities and distortions, with Christensen/Hillestad on drums and Kjellemyr on bass giving attentive and subtle support. The titles of the compositions carry you into an aquatic atmosphere, from the icy glaciers to the foamy waterfalls, and from the relentless sea to the calmness of rivers.


[ecmreviews] Ketil Bjørnstad made a splash, if you will, with this, his first of many collaborative projects for ECM. Water Stories puts the Norwegian pianist, composer, and novelist in fine and familiar company, sharing the studio with guitarist Terje Rypdal, drummers Jon Christensen and Per Hillestad, and bassist Bjørn Kjellemyr. Though billed as a jazz album, Water Stories is folk music for the ocean floor. Bjørnstad swishes through his motives with the surrender of a sliver of driftwood on the waves, bowing to his band mates in unobtrusive postures.