Tord Gustavsen, Simin Tander & Jarle Vespestad – What Was Said (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:55 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Chamber Jazz, Nordic Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
What was said brings new colours to Tord Gustavsen’s musical palette. His latest trio project builds upon the subtle understanding of his long musical association with drummer Jarle Vespestad, introduces the entrancing Afghan-German vocalist Simin Tander, and explores the tradition of Norwegian church music in a most untraditional way: “For the repertoire of the new project, Simin and I have been working with an Afghan poet, translating and shaping a selection of hymns that I grew up with in Norway into Pashto,” Gustavsen explains. “This process has been challenging and really fruitful. We have gone quite far in interpreting the lyrics in a more ‘integral’ manner, reaching into a space where I feel that Sufism and Christianity actually meet, along with other contemplative traditions. The Norwegian hymns are my ‘standards’ – reaching deeper down in my musical and spiritual being than the typical jazz canon. The sound and feel of the Norwegian hymns in Pashto is truly captivating.” Simin Tander also sings, in English, verse of Persian mystic Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-73) and US proto-Beat poet Kenneth Rexroth (1905-82). As a pure play of sounds, too, the combination of Tander’s voice and Gustavsen’s piano and discreet electronics has an emotional persuasiveness of its own, outside the limits of language. The Gustavsen/Tander/Vespestad trio takes its programme of “hymns and visions” to the concert halls and clubs of Europe in the first months of 2016.
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Simin Tander – Unfading (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:57 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazzhaus Records
Following her superb album Where Water Travels Home and the internationally acclaimed, extraordinary collaboration with Norwegian star pianist Tord Gustavsen for the ECM label (What Was Said, 2016), German-Afghan singer Simin Tander opens a new door on her artistic journey, and beyond it she discovers unusual soundscapes: with her expressive voice and a freshly formed quartet, she sets out on an adventure of multifaceted connections with her new album Unfading. In it she interweaves the flow of actual songs and the power of timelessly beautiful melodies full of emotion with echoes of the archaic past and passages of improvised freedom. And this always from a very female perspective: texts from poetesses in the Pashto language and the metamorphosis of an Afghan hit from the 1960s are juxtaposed with the poetry of Sylvia Plath, Tander’s own compositions in a beguilingly secretive narrative tone and a classical Spanish lullaby; an intertwined dramatic arc stretching across centuries connecting different creative women – with mature, evocative vocal power. Simin Tander has united three exceptional musicians in an entirely untypical ensemble in order to take this courageous step. Bass player Björn Meyer (ECM recording artist) from Sweden and Samuel Rohrer (ECM recording artist) from Switzerland on percussion create the imaginative, rhythmic framework – in an interplay of driving, pulsating, almost funky riffs and impressive, loose textures. The Tunisian musician Jasser Haj Youssef playing the viola d’amore acts as a subtle counterpart to Tander’s voice: the deep, delicately warm sound of this unique baroque instrument conjures up rich overtone landscapes and plays a leading role. The result is a celestial texture that seems to speak the unspeakable, yet time and again abandons itself to the tangible gestures of the song-writing. Simin Tander’s new project represents her fearless immersion into fascinating, uncharted music territory.
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