Freejazz blog

Fans of French pianist Benoît Delbecq should be cautious, because the pianist has played in many styles over the years, but on this album he dives deep into the sonic unknowns of his instrument, and is joined by Kim Myhr on guitar and resonant objects, Nils Ostendorf on trumpet and Toma Gouband on percussion.

Any listener without knowledge of the subgenre will really have a hard time to tell which instruments are used on this album, on which the subtle and lightest of touches make the instruments and strings resonate. I rarely use the liner notes to describe the music, but the description is a good one : «The music itself flows dexteriously between fragile sounds and large, open spaces to more densely articulated structures. The minute attention to detail attests to the sensitivity of the musicians: every little sound is important and has the potential to lead the music in new directions».

It is no surprise that the album's title is «Balance des Blancs» (white balance) a photographic term for the various shades of white that can be given to a picture. Our eye perceives all these whites as white, but when put next to each other, the differences become apparent.