Atlas 45° – landmark on the 45th parallel, some mile north of Bucharest, geographic meeting point between Western and Eastern Europe. This album presents some of the music that was created while physically and spiritually traveling across this imaginary border. – Interzone
Interzone
Crossing Atlas 45°
Label: NotTwo, 1999
Catalogue No: MW 719
Format: CD
Atlas 45° – landmark on the 45th parallel, some mile north of Bucharest,
geographic meeting point between Western and Eastern Europe. This album presents
some of the music that was created while physically and spiritually traveling
across this imaginary border. – Interzone
Tracks:
1. You Will Remember (de Martin) [07:28]
2. Distant Calls (Nonnenmacher) [11:42]
3. Crossing Atlas 45°(Tiberian/de Martin/Nonnenmacher) [02:46]
4. Kind of Zebehikos (Tiberian) [07:34]
5. Farewell Song (de Martin) [07:26]
6. Afrowalach (Tiberian) [07:28]
7.
Armenian Player (de Martin) [07:56]
8. Hatzegana (Tiberian) [03:33]
9. Italian Winter (Tiberian) [05:56]
Line-up:
Mircea Tiberian - piano
Horst Nonnenmacher - bass
Maurice de Martin - drums
Recorded:
and mixed at S.M.E.I. Studio, Bucarest, September 1998. Engineered by Calin
Ioachimescu. Produced by Mircea Tiberian and Maurice de Martin. Executive
producer: Marek Winiarski. Cover design by Maurice de Martin and Andrzej
Wojnowski. Photos by Daniel Teige.
Review:
Although this album comes third in the order of release after “Interzone”
Radio, Romania) and “Interzone plays with Adam Pieronczyk” (2000 Not Two,
Poland), its musical material was the first to be recorded. If in the two
records above, the “open formula” of the group was enriched through the
contribution of numerous guest soloists from Germany, Poland, Romania and
Bulgaria, the present CD is solely the outcome of the work of its founding
members the Romanian pianist Mircea Tiberian, drummer Maurice de Martin and
bassist Horst Nonnenmacher, both from Germany.
It goes without saying that a piano trio implies major responsibilities on the
part of each musician, offering nevertheless larger spaces for development of
ideas and individual potential. All three albums, as well as the ones that will
follow, since there is other material waiting for release, show the infinitive
possibilities of the musicians’ creativity. The music spreads refined flavors of
the oneiric and the jocose, essences of a modalism characteristic of the Eastern
European musical landscape. Through images painted with discretion and taste,
the original compositions bring a breath of freshness to a new and sincere
lyricism, a floating sensation of beatitude and musical ecstasy.
Above all, one should emphasize the fluidity of the melodies generating worlds
of beauty veiled in shades of the twilight. The authenticity of the experience
is revealed by the free movement of each musician into the spaces of spontaneous
expression, a freedom governed through an intense interplay and a certain
subjection of the groove. This “individuality in unity” makes itself known not
only in the moment of “instant composing”, but also in some other episodes of
the recording which seem generated by pure inspiration.
Intentions, suggestions, memories come, pass by, connect themselves naturally,
in airy textures, subtly scintillating. The diversity range comprises sentences
evoking times long gone by (“Kind of Zebehikos”), splashes of joy generated by
the vitality of Romanian traditional folkdance (“Hatzegana”), strange ornaments
with an exotic-oriental touch (“Armenian Prayer”), as well as traces of
nostalgia illuminated by hope (“Distant Calls”, “Farewell Song”). Like in a
nutshell, you have in your hands a unique album, belonging to a trio of
uncontested European value.
(Florian "Mosn" Lungu, Jazzcritic, Radio Romania)
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