Republic of Jazz: Aki Rissanen

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Aki Rissanen - Amorandom (2016)

Amorandom is the new major international release from Finnish pianist and composer, Aki Rissanen, described as a ‘rising star around Europe’ by Downbeat Magazine in 2015.

‘Aki is a tremendously musical, passionate and soulful person and has a high energy level. He is one of the best young pianists I have heard in years’. DAVE LIEBMAN

‘A melodic imagination and instinct to bend the familiar into unfamiliar shapes’. GUARDIAN

Over the last few years Aki has quietly been building a name in the international jazz world both as a leader and as a sideman. With Amorandom, he delivers his most authoritative work to date. There's a fluidity in his playing and a boldness in his composing that deserves widespread praise and real recognition for one of the finest young European pianists. Described by Downbeat as a ‘rising star around Europe, Amorandom is the work that will introduce Aki Rissanen’s startling new talent to a global audience.

FOTO CORTESÍA DE ROBERTO DOMÍNGUEZ / FOTOGRAFIANDO EL JAZZ

Released March 4, 2016

LINER NOTES by Aki Rissanen:

Many of today's jazz musicians are renaissance men. We have vast knowledge of the history and craftsmanship of several genres of music. Technology has indeed made it possible to explore music on the internet at a very fast pace. We seem to have “everything” at our finger tips. Maybe this is our way to keep up with today’s intense lifestyle, but this has often made me wonder, why cannot I focus on anything? Especially in a small country like Finland, I've found myself playing all kind of things, from mainstream to avant-garde and almost everything in between. I've faced the problem that many other artists have encountered too, how to concentrate on one's own music while still being involved in many projects and styles? Nevertheless, as demanding it has been, I've always liked the beautiful anxiety of being an artist and not knowing what is going to happen next!

For me, the piano trio has not been the dearest musical set-up. Although it offers lots of liberty and chances to use the piano's full capabilities in communication with the other musicians, I've always felt that there are too many good trios around and everything has been done before. It took guts to make a trio album. Fortunately, my fellow musicians here came to help me at the perfect time. The trio was really born under the lucky stars! The readiness of these musicians is fascinating and there is no real need for verbalizing anything, neither in studio nor on stage. People ask me if there are any other players in Finland because those two seem to be everywhere. The answer is yes, but there is only one Antti and one Teppo!

The music on this album is based on an animation movie to which I composed a sound track few years ago. Although the original music has gone through many stages of transformation, you can still hear a cinematic flavor in it. I also felt mature enough not to hide my musical influences which are pretty evident, but at the same time I feel that my own voice is more present than ever before. In a way, I have needed to step a bit back in time to be able to side-slip from what I have been to who I am now (and maybe will be in the future).

I want to thank Antti and Teppo once again for their incredible musicianship, my sound engineer Mikko Raita, who has given lots of support at various stages of this album, my mastering engineer Svante Forsbäck, who made the music sound like silk, Tuula Leinonen and Markus Partanen for inviting me to score the movie, the artistic director of Koko Jazz Club in Helsinki, Timo Hirvonen, who has provided a spot for musically developing the trio to this point, and of course Dave Stapleton from Edition Records for his trust and the most pleasant beginning of a collaboration! And last but definitely not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to Nathalie who has always believed in me.

Aki Rissanen (2015)