In the summer of 2017, Steiger won the young Jazz talent competition at Gent Jazz festival, which enabled them to realize the ‘Give Space’ project. Awareness of the moment in a place and time became the core of the musical storytelling, blurring the divisions of natural and industrial, inner and outer etc. The overall work is a blend of co-related atmosphere of the place, its properties, sounds, the moment and its traced records.
“The space can be both inside and outside. This new environment will thus act as the 4th instrument in other words. Hereby we want to research and play with letting the space influence our music and vice versa, letting our music influence the space. This process will include recording 7 numbers at 7 different locations.”
The three musicians that make up Steiger all have a jazz background. Moreover, their studies at different music schools across Belgium (Ghent, Antwerp) and Scandinavia (Göteborg, Copenhagen) have broadened their perspective on listening, practicing and playing different musical genres as well as helped them approach music more sensuously. All three musicians have been active for some time in different musical projects with different genres as well as the theatre. As a result, they are able to persue an artistic result that is as relevant as possible to them.
In September, Steiger will be one of twelve emerging jazz ensembles performing at the prestigious 12 Points Festival in Dublin. A unique networking opportunity for its participants, 12 Points is a valuable resource for festival bookers and jazz media.
Ghent's Steiger are a piano trio, but not in the classical sense. With their versatile style, influenced by different musical genres such as jazz, rock, pop, classical and electronic music, they try to find a balance between composition and improvisation through the use of experimentation and electronics.
Considered pioneers of the Belgian jazz crossover scene, Steiger have been active for 6 years and have recently found themselves performing at major jazz venues in Flanders, picking up numerous accolades along the way.
The trio's highly anticipated sophomore album 'Give Space', released 14th September on Sdban Ultra, was recorded at 7 different locations, with the music composed to fit and fight these locations within a dialogue of acoustics, atmospheres and appetition.
Field recordings, reverbs, ambient sounds, all collected within the search for the unpredictable, were given space within this dialogue as the essential part of the encounter. As a result, the locations emerge somewhat as a fourth member of the trio.
The music - sometimes fixed, sometimes completely free - takes on an ever-changing journey into their multi-faceted world.
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LP TRACKLISTING:
A1. Steiger - And There They Stood
A2. Steiger - Captain Hooker
A3. Steiger - Female Pope
B1. Steiger - The Lady, the Llama and the Dog
B2. Steiger - Henri's Entropic Blimp Flight
B3. Steiger - Cripplewood
CD TRACKLISTING:
1. Steiger - And There They Stood
2. Steiger - Captain Hooker
3. Steiger - Chin-de-Dah
4. Steiger - Cripplewood
5. Steiger - Female Pope
6. Steiger - Deimos
7. Steiger - Henri's Entropic Blimp Flight
8. Steiger - The Lady, the Llama and the Dog