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A fascinating solo album from the Swiss pianist and composer, Entendre offers deeper insight into pianist Nik Bärtsch’s musical thinking, illuminating aspects of his playing and the nature of his modular pieces. As its titles imply the new album, recorded at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo studio, considers listening as a dynamic process. In these solo realizations, Bärtsch’s polymetric pieces unfold with heightened alertness to the subtleties of touch. The pianist finds freedom in aesthetic restriction, while also seizing opportunities to guide the music to new places. An adaptive as well as a highly original musician, he diligently serves the context at hand, and the solo work has been developing in parallel to his group activities over the last few years. For Bärtsch, some key moments in this regard have included his solo appearance at ECM’s 50th anniversary celebration at New York’s Lincoln Center in 2019, as well as performances in ongoing collaboration with visual artist Sophie Clements. A solo piano tour in 2017, furthermore, whose unorthodox itinerary took him to Teheran, Cairo, Alexandria, Kolkata, and Delhi, had also prompted rumination on the intertwined relationships of performance and ritual music in different cultures. This, too, influenced the preparatory work on Entendre. “My touch in the solo music is not primarily a ‘jazz’ attack on the piano. It’s between things. Between chamber music, solo playing in the classical tradition, more modern minimal music, and the ‘groove’ aspect. And the natural sound of the Lugano room helped to bring out these elements. I also felt inspired by the history of the room. And I really like the fact that it is here in Switzerland, in the country where I live and where Ronin works. I didn’t need to go anywhere else to document this music. It happens here.” - Nik Bärtsch