Resonans is peaceful music, but there’s plenty happening inside it; three musicians have found a way to make lines fit together so beautifully that it’s easy to stay with them.
April Records
Barbara Fiig – Piano; Johan Kjær Houver – Bass; Timon Matern – Drums
Blåly make music that can stop you in your tracks without raising its voice. On Resonans, their second album, Danish pianist Barbara Fiig, bassist Johan Kjær Houver and drummer Timon Matern blend Scandinavian folk, jazz and chamber music. Individually, their lines can sound simple. What Fiig does on piano is gorgeous. Houver and Matern push the rhythm, but they also trace melodic lines that meld with Fiig’s, weaving in and out of what she’s playing. Put those lines together and they create a sound that’s almost orchestral.
“Bølger” begins with Houver repeating a warm, woody bass phrase, and Fiig coming in on the same rhythm. Matern adds a syncopated beat, and now there are a couple of rhythms going on. It all fits beautifully. Later, you can feel the music relax, Fiig’s piano lines get more delicate, and toward the end the piano and drums disappear, leaving the bass with that same soothing repeated phrase.
“Midt i alting” begins with Fiig’s piano sounding like the opening of a classical piece. It’s lovely, and then Houver’s booming bass comes in, followed by Matern’s drums. All three are high in the mix so they come off as equals. When Houver switches to the bow, it changes the whole picture, surrounding Fiig’s piano with what sounds like a small string section. It’s a big sound for three people.
Listen a few times and you realize how important those small touches are. In “Solnedgang i øst,” Matern’s compact drum flourishes and shimmering cymbals, along with Houver’s heavy bass, give Fiig’s piano something to float on. You hear it again in their arrangement of the Swedish folk song “Emigrantvisa.” The piano line sound almost childlike. The bass bangs out single notes, something scrapes across a drum head, rimshots ricochet, and later what sounds like a bowed bass comes in. Matern keeps adding those little stick flourishes, and with the bass underneath, the whole thing can sound like clogs stumbling across a wooden bridge.
By the time the title track, “Resonans,” arrives, Houver is pulling the bow very slowly across the bass strings, trying for that orchestral feel again. Delicate tinkling piano notes answer him. The music is so peaceful it’s like the dawn of a new day with a touch of the eerie and a little wonder there as well. Houver’s steadily plucked notes could be a beating heart, while Matern’s steady drumstick sounds wrap around the rhythm. Fiig is good at repeating lines that get stuck in your ear; listen long enough and you don’t want them to go away.
Fiig, Houver and Matern formed Blåly while studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The name comes from the Danish word ly, meaning “shelter,” and that seems fitting. Resonans is peaceful music, but there’s plenty happening inside it; three musicians have found a way to make lines fit together so beautifully that it’s easy to stay with them.
