Nik Bartsch's Ronin

Stoa (ECM)

Swiss pianist Nik Bartsch calls his music Zen Funk.

Stoa: clean-lined, but not bloodless.

By John Shand

Swiss pianist Nik Bartsch calls his music Zen Funk. The ascetic Japanese connotation in this and the band's name is well placed. Layering jazz interaction over funk rhythms is hardly new, but Bartsch's innovation is to score virtually all the music, assembling it in evolving, repeated patterns closely related to Steve Reich-style minimalism. What results is Spartan and clean-lined, but not bloodless.

The rhythmic precision underpinning the music is so exact it seems heightened, like a super-realist painting. This demands disciplined musicianship, and that is amply supplied by Bartsch's band, which, like his music's form and metres, is oddly configured. His piano and electric piano are joined by bass guitarist Bjorn Meyer, drummer Kaspar Rast, percussionist Andi Pupato and the Sha on contrabass and bass clarinet.

The piano's lines can be edgy or supremely melodic, beneath which meticulous but exciting grooves ensure the repetitions (in pieces such as Modul 32 and Modul 33) are never soporific.