Nik Bärtsch’s RONIN return leaner and fitter

4 May sees the release of a new album from Nik Bärtsch’s RONIN. Entitled “Awase”, it was produced in the South of France by Manfred Eicher and is released on Eicher’s ECM Records label.

Nik Bärtsch’s “zen-funk” outfit Ronin is one of the most original and also most successful Swiss music exports of the last few years. With a line-up of piano, reeds, bass, and percussion, the band has developed a unique style of tightly woven and sharply syncopated musical structures which are both minimalist and richly dynamic. Honed not just in rehearsals but also in a weekly live session in front of an audience at Zurich’s Exil Club (which is co-owned by Ronin), the band’s live performances are a truly mesmerising experience.

““Awase is a term from martial arts, meaning „moving together” in the sense of matching energies”, explains Bärtsch. And this is what his homepage has to say: “Six years have passed since the last release from the Swiss group. In the interim, trimmed from quintet to quartet size and with new bassist Thomy Jordi fully integrated, Ronin has become a subtly different band. Bärtsch speaks of a new-found freedom and flexibility in the approach to the material, with greater transparency, more interaction, more joy in every performance. The freedom here extends to revisiting early Bärtsch modules alongside new compositions including, for the first time on a Ronin record, a piece by reedman Sha.“

Nik Bärtsch’s RONIN
ECM Records