Two Keyboards, One Floating Conversation
Kühn and van 't Hof trade ideas across the keys like they're finishing each other's sentences.
Balloons works because Jasper van 't Hof is there. The Dutch keyboardist brings a different temperament to Joachim Kühn's quicksilver approach — where Kühn moves with restless precision, van 't Hof settles into grooves, occasionally floating above them. The two trade piano and synthesizer duties across these six tracks, and the album becomes a conversation between two distinct voices rather than a leader-and-band setup.
This is keyboard music, straightforward, but the production lets you hear both players clearly. Kühn's touch is angular and fleet; van 't Hof's is more ambient, more willing to hold a note and let it breathe. On the longer pieces, they find moments of real interplay — not the kind where musicians quote each other's solos, but the kind where one player's choice shapes what the other plays next. It's intimate without being precious.
Balloons sits in Kühn's discography as a duet album dressed up with rhythm section and arrangements, recorded for MPS Records in their final active period. It's not Kühn's most celebrated work, and it won't convert anyone skeptical of synthesizer-heavy jazz, but for listeners already attuned to European keyboard jazz in the 1980s, it's a solid, unshowy record that rewards close listening.
Who's playing
Joachim Kühnkeyboard
Jasper van ’t Hofkeyboard
