Norwegian pianist and composer Jon Balke is set to release his third solo album titled Discourses (ECM Records) on May 5, 2020.
Balke describes the project as a “a kind of elegy” for dialog in public conversation: “Reading news and articles from a variety of sources, I am, like many people, engaged, shocked, frustrated, inspired, and sometimes glad about what I observe, and this stays with me in the process of making music. In the case of Discourses, language has been a big inspiration and a gateway to shape and mold the piano playing along the lines of rhetoric.”
The album includes piano and soundscapes generated with “field recordings and processed instruments. I played a lot of them on my cello and warped them with various sound tools. Keyboards were also used, and software plug-ins.”
Jon Balke was born in 1955 in Norway. He was one of the founders of the group Masqualero. His earlier solo works include Book of Velocities (2007) and Warp (2015).