Affirmation

In November 2021, bassist Arild Andersen brought his new quartet with saxophonist Marius Neset, pianist Helge Lien and drummer Håkon Mjåset Johansen to Oslo's Rainbow Studio. Norway's pandemic travel restrictions having ruled out the participation of Manfred Eicher on this occasion, the musicians were on their own, ostensibly to document some of Arild's pieces.

On the second day of recording, Andersen proposed some collective improvising: "With nothing planned, we recorded a first part of about 23 minutes, and a second part of about 14 minutes." These extended arcs of music became the new focus of the album.

"Affirmation Part I" and "Affirmation Part II" are presented, unedited, in their entirety. The album is completed by Andersen's composition "Short Story."

"Although the quartet had given quite a few concerts, and we've played together a lot, we'd never previously done a full set of just improvising. The idea of listening before you play is so present here, as is the way in which everybody comes up with ideas where interplay is the focus. I called the album Affirmation, where you have to trust yourself and trust the others just as much."

Freely improvised music, of course, has long been part of Andersen's work method, all the way back to collaborations with Jan Garbarek and Edward Vesala in the Triptykon project, or the energetic interaction in Sam Rivers's trio in the early 1970s. Now his new group also rises to the challenge in its own way, subtly finding and shaping forms in the moment. For the listener's convenience, index points indicate where the music takes on a new direction. But the best way to hear Affirmation is to follow it from the outset.

Andersen's bass sets ideas in motion from the first moment of "Affirmation Part I," ideas soon embellished by Lien's rippling piano and Mjåset Johansen's gentle splashes of cymbal colour. When Neset enters, initially to meditate on an iterative motif, Andersen envelops it in an almost orchestral embrace, first with bowed bass then briefly with his pedal-generated sounds, blending acoustic and electronic timbres. The music keeps unfolding.