Label: ECM Records, 2025

Personnel - Thomas Strønen: drums; Ayumi Tanaka: piano; Hakon Aase: violin; Leo Svensson Sander: violoncello; Ole Morten Vagan: bass.

Time is a Blind Guide is an instrumentally sophisticated aggregation fronted by Norwegian drummer and composer Thomas Strønen, whose blend of organic timbres and luminous sonorities easily conquer the ear and appease the soul. The group’s third recording, Off Stillness, confirms Strønen’s mastery of structure and arrangement, highlighting the instrumentation’s sonic contrasts through natural pulses while maintaining a sense of poised, flowing elegance throughout.

Consisting of seven original compositions, the album opens with “Memories of Paul”, a dedication to two influential musicians who shaped Strønen’s artistic development: drummer Paul Motian and pianist Paul Bley. Existing in an almost abstract state of grace, the piece relies on floating piano gestures, delicate bass movement, sensitive brushwork, and understated string lines. “Season” gently calms both spirit and mind, carried by a cultivated percussive current that draws from folk and world-music inflections. Japanese pianist Ayumi Tanaka plucks and combs the piano strings, producing a reassuring, subtly exotic aura, while violinist Håkon Aase steps forward with lyrical authority. It is a quietly beautiful moment.

“Fall” continues in a similarly hushed, airy vein, inviting a recalibration of the inner compass through dreamy pianism, breezily intersecting strings, and drumming reduced to its bare essentials. Everything seems to float and sway like a feather in the wind. This same depth of commitment and attentive interaction also informs the album’s more animated passages, notably “Cubism” and “Dismissed”. In the former, Strønen’s conversational rhythmic language becomes especially vivid, while Tanaka’s inflected harmonic colors generate a tensile undercurrent that gradually leads toward a staccato-driven conclusion. “Dismissed”, playfully avant-garde in character, is tightly coordinated through incisive punctuations and rhythmic jabs, all working together in a kind of subliminal counterpoint.

The album closes with “In Awe of Stillness”, which begins in a sea of calm before transforming halfway through into an energetic, world-fusion cycle sparked by Tanaka’s subtle complexities and lightness of touch, and an unperturbed bass-and-drums foundation. At this stage, Aase casts his violin lines as the melodic focal point.

In a rare combination of delicacy and boldness, Off Stillness stands as a testament to Strønen’s extraordinary talents. Together, he and his collaborators forge a sound partnership that feels both revelatory and deeply inspiring.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Season ► 05 - Cubism ► 06 - Dismissed ► 07 - In Awe of Stillness

Label: ECM, 2018

Lineup – Thomas Stronen: drums; Ayumi Tanaka: piano; Hakon Aase: violin; Lucy Railton: cello; Ole Morten Vagan: bass.

Norwegian drummer/composer Thomas Stronen, a member of the experimental jazz band Food, returns with a quintet variation of his Time Is A Bling Guide project. Entitled Lucus, the 11-track album features the collective’s core members: violinist Hakon Aase, cellist Lucy Railton, and bassist Ole Morten Vagan, plus a valuable new addition with the up-and-coming Japanese pianist Ayumi Tanaka sitting in for Kit Downs. Also noticeable is the absence of the two percussionists that helped to carry out the rhythmic flow of the previous album.

An ethereal chamber setting is immediately assimilated on the first track, “La Bella”, a reiterative meditation of great beauty that, suspended and static in nature, varies in intensity. All the compositions belong to Stronen, except this one, penned in conjunction with Aase and Vagan.

“Release” is a floating, semiopaque exercise whose energy keeps being adjusted according to the artists’ interactions. Besides the bandleader’s exposed brushwork, one can detect short-lived buzzing sounds of strings, lyric violin appeal (bowed and plucked), and pianistic craftsmanship in the form of permeating rhythmic dots or prearranged melodic waves.

Tanaka propitiates greater harmonic definition on the title track, which achieves a pleasurable consonance with the understated sound of the strings and the ingratiating movements locked down by bass and drums.

“Fugitive Places”, inspired by Anne Michael’s novel of the same name, opens with nocturnal moods set by violin and cello, passing through a contemplative phase defined by sparse solo piano, and ending in a cohesive unification as the remaining musicians join in. If there’s no case for haste here with the low-key posture adopted, “Baka”, in opposition, opens with stirring thumps, injects motivating rhythmic accentuation, and appeals to playfulness. Nevertheless, it was with the idiosyncratic arrangement of “Wednesday” that the band captivated me the most, showcasing classical piano spells and beautiful folk melodies instilled by Aase. It all ends up engulfed by a gallant groove in five.

Exhaling non-Western scents, “Tension” starts off with Vagan’s open discourse and only vaguely brings what its title discloses. In turn, both “Truth Grows Gradually” and “Islay” deliver an admirable breezy liveliness. The latter showcases another fabulous moment by Tanaka, who interrupts the rhythmic flow with rampant voicings and infuses unexpected crosscurrent responses to plucked violin embellishments.

Stronen gives his counterparts the freedom they need to totally connect with his spacious sense of composition, and Lucus lives from the harmony of their constant exchanges.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - La Bella ► 07 - Wednesday ► 10 - Islay