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Ilmonique on CD

During the last years, Kalle and I had the opportunity to work on original duo music without much pressure from outside and finally recorded this program in September 2022.

I have always enjoyed listening to and exploring ensemble music that uses multiple instruments being capable of providing harmonic information.

This certainly requires deep listening on various levels - pitch-wise, chord-wise, register-wise, rhythmically and texturally.

The duo combination of piano and acoustic guitar puts these possibilities and challenges under a magnifying glass. The analogy of a "meta-instrument" seems especially fitting for this combination which showcases two instruments with very different properties that still make a lot of textural overlaps possible. Ideally their sounds blend into each other, one seems like an extension of the other.

The pieces that I chose for this duo are song-inspired but also largely reflect some modernist compositional tendencies. It's as though Joni Mitchell, Henry Threadgill and Elliott Carter had decided to move to the same neighborhood, at least for a short sojourn, to work on an interactive project.

Achim Kaufmann

This is our first duo recording and it took almost two years to develop the music, yet we were not in a hurry and we let the music grow organically.

Our decision to use acoustic guitar made the project unique for me. This project took me back to teenager years when I was overwhelmed by the acoustic work of Ralph Towner, Jimmy Page and Julian Bream. Finally I found a chance to integrate this in my music with Achim. For this project I had to tame the acoustic guitar again.

The music is a collective meditation on influences from Miles Davis over Morton Feldman to Robert Johnson but all original compositions by Achim and me.

I think this music shows new sides of our musical journey.

Kalle Kalima