Space Between the Strings
Every instrument occupies its own layer without ever getting in the way of the others.
Trees of Light moves at the speed of breath. The koto arrives first — plucked, resonant, patient — and the fiddle answers like a voice recognizing another voice. Anders Jormin's bass doesn't push; it holds. What strikes you immediately is the air in the room. These three players have given themselves permission to listen, to leave gaps, to let silence mean something. This is not a trio in the traditional sense, where one voice leads and two support. Instead you get three equal presences, each occupying its own space, each trusting the others to do their part.
Recorded in May 2013, Trees of Light pairs Jormin with Swedish fiddler and singer Lena Willemark and Japanese koto player Karin Nakagawa. The combination should feel incongruous — Scandinavian folk tradition, Japanese court instrument, European jazz bass — but it doesn't. The album works because no one is pretending to be someone else. The koto sounds like a koto. The fiddle sounds like a fiddle. The bass is the bass. There's no fusion here, no blending of traditions into some generic world-music compromise. Instead, each musician brings their own language and they find ways to speak together without translation.
This is a record that rewards patience. The textures are subtle. The arrangements favor listening over motion. Kelman in All About Jazz recognized this immediately, noting that while moments arrive with intensity, the overall shape of the album respects space and silence. If you're looking for a Jormin trio record with the drive and energy of a more conventional jazz session, this isn't it. If you want to hear three skilled musicians thinking about sound itself — how an instrument breathes, how silence functions, what happens when you give each voice room to exist — this belongs in front of you.
