This album came about through a fortuitous set of circumstances. I was traveling in Tuscany with my uncle, who is a viola da gamba player and educator, and was teaching classes there. It so happened that Maxime Igisch was there taking lessons from my uncle, and I met him and we started talking about music. We had many overlapping musical interests and I asked him if he had made his own music. He showed me Jambal's debut EP, Between Dissonance and Consonance, which I immediately loved and was very impressed by. Upon hearing that they were working on a new album to be recorded the following summer, I suggested writing a track for Jambal that could be added to their recording session. Maxime consulted with the band, and they agreed, having listened to my work and interested to collaborate with a composer. It turned out a few months later that they realized between music school and their other commitments, especially because they were located in different cities, they were too busy to write a new album. So instead, I offered to write compositions for a full album, that we could then breakdown and improvise with once we got together.

So over a period of 8 months or so I experimented with compositional sketches and wrote out jazz charts that we played around with and shared. Finally we came together in Luxembourg in late summer of 2022 and jammed the tracks out together in rehearsal, making changes and adding new elements in the moment. We did that for a week, then spent another week recording the album in an incredible studio with engineer Eric Slunnes.

The whole process was so special to me, not least because it was Jambal's first full-length album and my first jazz album, but because it was such a joy to play with a band again, something I hadn't done since high school, and in particular with such skilled and dedicated musicians. I learned so much in the making of this album and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and growth that came from it.

The compositions cover a range of ideas and moods that I felt and wanted to capture during the year that I was writing them, as well as our favorite musical inspirations and references.

Thanks as always for listening.

x

Tristan de Liège