Mathias Eick

SkalaECM **

Trumpeter Mathis Eick included some of this music when his quartet played Bray a few years ago. With him were Andreas Ulvo (piano) and Audun Erlien (electric bass), who now, with drummers Torsten Lofthus and Gard Nielsen, are the basic unit for this new album. The music was underwhelming in Bray; larger resources, including Tore Brunborg (tenor), Morten Qvenild (keyboards), Sidsel Walstad (harp) and weeks of studio work, have not altered what is perilously close to classy disco music. Eick is a beautiful, imaginative musician with a very Scandinavian sense of transience informing his melodic charm, as his work on guitarist Jacob Young's Evening Falls, his own The Doorand, most recently, Iro Harla's marvellous Vespers(all for ECM) show. But there's not much blood in Skala, despite the sweat. A few tears, maybe, at how slight is the end product. See ecmrecords.com