ECM 2858 / 7849966
Steve Tibbetts (guitar, percussion, piano); Marc Anderson (percussion, gongs, handpan, loops); JT Bates (drums)
Recorded 2021-2024
This is Steve Tibbetts’s eleventh album for ECM over period of time that spans nearly half a century. In that time the music has been slowly evolving, and indeed this new offering has been three years in the making, and yet the guitarist and composer seems to be in no rush to end his musical search and presses on with his findings. In continuing his journey Tibbetts draws on many sources and not least from his eastern influences saying that “I am still reaching for the evocative sound of Sultan Khan”, and the influence of the late Indian sarangi master is still to fore in his slowly developing and evocative improvisations.
Of his musical philosophy Tibbets says “Music is as close to magic as we mortals have. Musicians do revel in being thought of as wizards or shamans or conduits or vessels or prophets…. Music is a twilight language. The job is to translate some shadow into sound”. It is with this in mind that the music heard on Close rarely steps out of the shadow, and there is a darker hue than on his previous ECM releases with less light and shade and an overriding sense of melancholy prevails.
The album comprises nine new compositions/improvisations with most containing several parts within. This is for me where I have found the music a little foreboding and lacking in variety as the mood is sombre and the separate parts appear to have little to distinguish where one ends and the other begins.
The music often moves quickly between electronic and acoustic guitar, loops and processed backdrops yet unlike albums such as Northern Song and Life Of (and brought into even sharper focus on Hellbound Train – An Anthology released in July 2022) there is little rhythmic movement and variety. This brings an insular and moribund feeling that is sometimes overwhelming, and consequently I have struggled to listen to the whole album in one sitting.
By splitting my listening in to two segments I have been able to discern the subtleties in the way the music has been structured and arranged as well as catching the fleeting melodic fragments that seem to disappear as quickly as they appear, but it appears that this time around the latest part of Tibbetts’s journey simply fails to resonate with me on this occasion.
