Magnificently rich and harmonious. New release on ECM

Mats Eilertsen’s powerful work commissioned by Vossajazz in 2014 was hailed on tour around the country last year. National Jazz Scene is proud to have helped to give Rubicon a life beyond the one festival evening, this is music that deserves to be heard by many.

Now they are back with a brand new album, produced by no less than Manfred Eicher. Our producer Njål Ølnes endorsed this as one of the finest albums ECM has released since the golden seventies!

Mats Eilertsen – bass, Trygve Seim – saxophone, Eirik Hegdal – saxophone og clarinet, Harmen Fraanje – piano, Thomas T. Dahl – guitar, Rob Waring – vibraphone and marimba, Olavi Louhivuori – drums

Here´s an excerpt from last years concert at our place:

Clippings from album reviews:

“with Rubicon, Eilertsen steps confidently up to the spotlight as leader, delivering an album that, with lessons learned from his existing body of work, opens his music up to even greater interpretive possibilities than ever before”
Review in AllAboutJazz

“The band swings with a seductive lightness, and the quality of the tunes and the ever-changing tonal interest keep lifting the predominantly low-lit mood”
Review in The Guardian

“subtle sophistication at work”
«It all amounts to a slithering snake of an album, soft, discreet, mysterious and, in spots, absolutely gorgeous.»
«Eilertsen may not be a jaw-dropping funky plucker like Stanley Clarke but his twin talents of composition and being a team player is tantamount to being a leader by example.»
Mike Greenblatt / Classicalite

“The pieces on Rubicon travel in a number of directions, subtly melding improvisation and composition, but all retain an overall atmosphere of calm composure and elegant grace.”
Dusted Mag, Joseph Burnett

“a loose- limbed, folk-inflected ensemble sound.”
Irish Times, Cormac Larkin

Indeed, the way piano, mallet instruments and guitar inhabit the same sonic space without getting in each other’s way and still ending up with the overall sound as spacious as this is a real feat.
A gorgeous album that is growing in importance for me with each listen.”
JazzBreakfast, Peter Bacon

“Rubicon delivers a series of fine compositions that explore various combinations of intimate, exploratory sounds along (mostly) subtle color lines and elegantly arrayed textural palettes. They evoke an inherent lyricism that, for all its restraint, is tonally expansive and harmonically smart.”
Thom Jurek, All Music