Jon Balke
Skrifum

Jon Balke piano, Spektrafon
Recorded November 2023
The Village Recording, Copenhagen
Engineer: Thomas Vang
Mixed by Sven Andréen and Job Balke
at Klokkereint Studios in Gjøvik
Cover: Jan Groth, Sign I (1973-74)
Produced by Manfred Eicher and Jon Balke
Release date: February 28, 2025

Although billed as the latest solo recording from pianist Jon Balke, the instrument here doubles as its own accompanist by virtue of the “Spektrafon.” Created by Balke in collaboration with music technology professor Anders Tveit at the Norwegian Academy of Music, this new tool captures ambient sounds in real time as the performer draws out chords of harmonic material via a tablet interface. “In a way,” Balke notes, “the player enters into a dialogue with a live active reverberation to the piano sound – a dialogue with oneself.” The result is his most meditative offering to date.

On Skrifum (“handwriting” in Icelandic), what we encounter is a series of mostly monophonic miniatures that frees his other hand to manipulate the effect of his keystrokes accordingly. Thus, Balke writes the music into being with that most ancient of gestural impulses to leave a record of one’s existence, only instead of cave walls and pyramids, he chooses the multiverse as his canvas. Pulling on the thread of Warp (2016) and Discourses (2020), both electro-acoustic explorations of the keyboard, he continues to unravel new metaphysical possibilities from wood, felt, and string.

“Calligraphic” and “Tegaki” (another word for handwriting, this from the Japanese) reiterate the theme as much in name as in execution, tapping the shadows cast by the primitive utterances we make. But it is in “Traces” where we are welcomed into the inner sanctum of the Spektrafon, which speaks as if it were only being spoken to. It is not an echo chamber but echo incarnate, self-sustaining and sentient. As the ink moves into “Lines” and “Streaks,” origins reveal themselves more clearly, emerging as afterglows of implied chords. If the piano is the soil, these are the crops it yields in digital harvest. All of which reminds us that contemplative gestures always leave their remnants, each with a life of its own. Such are the often-unrendered impulses of performance.

“Sparks” and “Strand” communicate in sporadic bursts, breaching realms out of which we are normally locked. From the finger-dampened strings of “Rifts” and the unsettled foundations of the title track to the almost-forbidden secrets of “Stripes,” there are more than enough articulations to spin a narrative that feels like our own. When Balke plays with two hands (as in “Ductus” and “Kitabat”), memories we never experienced start to become normal.

We often talk about improvisation coming from the ether. Skrifum makes that notion duly real. The pianism itself is of the past, as if played by the most conscientious children in an attic with no audience but themselves. Their explorations give way to unbridled dreams that manifest in the waking world, extending their tendrils to whoever will grab them.