Sebastian Rochford
Kit Downes
A Short Diary

Seb Rochford composition, drums
Kit Downes piano
Recorded at Waverley, Aberdeen
Recording engineer: Alex Bonney
Mixed by Manfred Eicher
Michael Hinreiner, engineer
Cover photo: Clare Rochford
Album produced by Sebastian Rochford and Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 20, 2023

In 2019, Sebastian Rochford, who previously intersected with ECM on Andy Sheppard’s Trio Libero (2012), Surrounded By Sea (2015), and Romaria (2018), lost his father, Aberdeen poet Gerard Rochford. While mourning, the drummer found himself unable to staunch the melodies welling up from within. Recorded in collaboration with pianist Kit Downes at his childhood home in Scotland, A Short Diary reapproaches that music in dedication to his family and the man whose absence left an unfillable chasm. He then approached producer Manfred Eicher, who mixed and brought the album to fruition.

Despite the heartache that permeates “This Tune Your Ears Will Never Hear,” it opens with bursts of light as if to fight off the darkness of death. This feeling continues throughout, even in titles one might not expect, such as “Night Of Quiet.” Rather than slumbering away peacefully, it sits lucidly awake, opening the curtain of memory to reveal the sunlit scenes of “Love You Grampa,” wherein a tender nostalgia takes over, expressed in interlocking pianism and sewn by needle (snare) and threads (cymbals). Downes opens one photo album after another, discovering as much as Rochford about his history. “Silver Light” is the most poignant, its underlying pulse brushing past as an elusive reflection in the window.

In those asides where Downes is alone (namely, “Communal Decisions” and “Our Time Is Still”), the walls of the room close in. Like a mobile turning above a crib by the force of a baby’s breath, he moves in concert with life itself. This feeling is most foregrounded in “Ten Of Us” (a reference to Rochford and his nine siblings). Its slightly dissonant staircase leads us into the attic, drawn to the histories buried in its chests of toys, boxes of old books, and piles of clothes. Trying his best not to unsettle the dust with his footfalls, Rochford builds a gentle yet mountingly declarative hymn of survival.

Everything funnels into “Even Now I Think Of Her.” Rochford explains: “It’s a tune my dad had sung into his phone and sent me. I forwarded this to Kit. He listened, and then we started.” This swing hangs from a tree, overlooking a windswept field as the last remnant of green after cataclysm. It weeps, closing hands around nothing notions of what could have been. Thus baptized by mortality, lowered into a font of stillness, it gives up the ghost and shreds the present into countless pieces.

Throughout A Short Diary, each note births the possibility of others waiting to be heard. As one of the most touching recordings to come out on ECM this century, it is pure, sonic humanity. Despite (if not because of) being so personal, I dare say you could pull on any thread sticking out from it and find one in your own heart that matches.