Memento – Marilyn Crispell & Anders Jormin

Memento is an exercise in recognition, the exact instant in which two orbits —Marilyn Crispell and Anders Jormin— align their gravities after decades of inhabiting the ECM universe. In this duo encounter, the initial improvisations emerge with the fragility of a memory attempting to take shape without forcing its presence. Crispell’s piano moves at the frontier of articulation, tracing lines that seem both discovered and surrendered, while Jormin’s double bass responds with an instinctive, almost vocal sensitivity.

There is a grammar of care that flows through the album. In pieces like "Three Shades of a House," the structure becomes a living terrain: the "Morning" version offers a tentative warmth, while the "Evening" takes retreat into an introspective solitude. In "Beach at Newquay," Jormin uses the bow to invoke the cry of seagulls with haunting fidelity, while Crispell’s piano reflects the glint of light upon the water, transforming technique into a purely visual and atmospheric experience.

The album closes with "Dragonfly," a Crispell elegy for Gary Peacock that allows the past to flow freely into the present. Memento feels, ultimately, like a shadow that no longer depends on its object: a state of being where disappearance and presence are part of the same circular movement.