Label: CAM Jazz (CAMJ 7972-2)
Release date 15 September 2023.
”Jazz is a restless music that moves ever on, sometimes seemingly impatient of its own past. MIRE III is a superb improvising trio that manages to balance innovation and history in equal measures, creating a consistent musical mood round ideas of change, emergence, maturity, self-sufficiency and proper but not slavish respect for past achievements. Island Song, the trio’s new album on CAM JAZZ, will not remind you of any of the jazz greats, but it will make you aware of them, even as it unfolds its own wings and takes flight. Pianist Joona Toivanen, bassist Thomas Markusson and drummer Johan Björklund inhabit a compelling musical atmosphere that doesn’t rely on shallow eclecticism to make its impact. This is music that has emerged fully formed into the sun of the present. ”
(Brian Morton)
Under the supervision of music producer Ermanno Basso, Island Song was recorded and mixed in September 2022 by Stefano Amerio at Artesuono Recording Studio in Cavalicco (UD), Italy, and mastered by Danilo Rossi.
MUSICIANS
Joona Toivanen – piano
Thomas Markusson – double bass
Johan Björklund – drums
REVIEWS
jazzpossu.fi
”In Toivanen’s music, the uppermost layer is often a slightly minimalist ear-pleasing gentleness and softness, and much of the same delicacy is on offer now.”
Jazzpossu – Pasi Virtanen
ilmanifesto.it
”A trio of extraordinary cohesion that allows itself a little more singing sliver, but not in style, and almost nothing that leads back to the somewhat tired form of ”Nordic jazz”. Here there is improvisation and interplay in the wake, we would say, of Paul Bley’s best intuitions.”
– Ilmanifesto
www.allaboutjazz.com
”The result is a fascinating album, with a very beautiful sound, which accompanies the listener with pleasure in dreamy explorations, even if without offering great elements of originality: a sort of syncretistic piano trio, in which many of the stylistic features developed in recent years by this type of formations elegantly and sensitively converge.” All About Jazz – Neri Pollastri
kulturbloggen.com
”The ambition is to create a soundtrack of reflections and emotions with unique contributions from three individuals in union. And overall, they have absolutely succeeded in their intention, something that is reinforced by the sought-after chemistry that has been established between responsive instrumentalists, whose influence on the production should be given equal importance.”
”As perhaps apparent, Island Song has a captivating outline of impressionism, often lingering and melancholic. The album is primarily aimed at searching recipients. And for those of us who are not satisfied with just a pleasant surface, the music appears to be extremely meaningful to be enclosed by, as a sound to discover whose evocative impact has the potential to grow with each listen.” Kulturbloggen – Mats Hallberg
www.lira.se
”We hear influences from folk music and contemporary art music in the dreamy sound of Mire III. The songs move in fairly temperate tempi. I like it, a lot.”
LIRA – Timo Kangas