A live recording from the Leipzig Opera House is the debut documentation of the duo of Ketil Bjørnstad and Terje Rypdal (active already since 1999). Material revisits pieces from Bjørnstad’s “Water Stories” and “The Sea” and from Rypdal’s “If Mountains Could Sing” and “Skywards”, and adds a Grieg theme and new material. Cranked-amp electric guitar and acoustic piano is a rare, possibly unique, duo combination, but as Ketil notes in his tour diary liner notes, “I am not always the softest pianist, and especially not when I am working with Terje.”
Rypdal’s singing electric guitar sound begins to whirl over percussive piano chording; it dives from violin-like high sounds to dark, flailing descents and back up to wheeling-bird cries on The Sea II, over Bjørnstad’s urgent ostinato. … The 10-minute finale, in which Rypdal’s astonishing multi-layered solo Le Manfred/Foran Peisen segues into the ecstatic and infectious progrocker The Return of Per Ulv, is just about worth the price of the disc.
John Fordham, The Guardian |