Ember (Leimgruber / Shcubert / Schwerdt / Lillinger)

Aurona Arona

Label: Creative Sources Country: Portugal

"The second album by the quartet Ember after the debut Oullh d'baham on Euphorium in 2006 this album features even more energetic and precise pieces ranging from free jazz, contemporary classic to noisy electro-acoustic collages.

The pieces were recorded in a three-hour session before a concert during the Ahornfelder Festival in Leipzig in 2008. Five of the pieces ended up on the CD and were edited by Alexander Schubert - it can be seen as a mixture of a studio and a live album. The idea behind the selection and editing of the material was to produce an album that would not fall into the often seen structures of improvised concerts with the long bows of searching for material but rather to have distinct and clearly separated pieces with precisely structured parts. In this sense the album neglects the process of searching a little with the benefit of being as compact as possible. In this sense this album can bee seen as Schubert's view of the quartet's music.

The members of Ember all live in different cities and come together a few times a year for concerts and recordings. The ability to combine minimal contemporary sound collages with outbursts of free jazz and electro-acoustic sound sculptures has been well received by the audience and can be seen as the key feature for a diverse and complex approach to improvised music.

Swiss saxophone player Urs Leimgruber is a well-established figure in improvised music known for his skilled extended playing techniques. The young drummer Christian Lillinger from Berlin who also plays in the band Hyperactive Kid is outstanding because of his energetic and breathtakingly fast playing. Leipzig based Oliver Schwerdt contributes a wide variety of free jazz and prepared piano sounds to the project benefitting from his experience as a organizer of many improvised ensemble projects. The composer and improvisator Alexander Schubert from Hamburg uses instrumental based acoustic and digital material to create the electronic elements of the quartet."-Ember MySpace page