Following her acclaimed album SKYLLUMINA, released back in March, London-based bassist, composer, and vocalist Ruth Goller has joined forces with German experimental jazz duo TRAINING (Johannes Schleiermacher and Max Andrzejewski) for a new album due 18 October via Squama Recordings.

Titled threads to knot, the album grew out of Goller’s involvement in the Group TRAINING concert series held in Berlin between January and July of last year. Each of its seven tracks was created according to the ‘exquisite corpse’ composition principle, similar to the party game in which each player draws a new part of a picture based only on a small, visible part of what the previously player had drawn.

In a press release announcing the album, Goller says: 

“Exploring our musical connection with Training is a fresh and unique approach between improvised music and composition. It has the right amount of both for me. All doors are always open to let our emotions flow, and this might be different every time. With the writing in the background we have developed a strong backbone as a band and a unique sound between our voices which reaches across genres and countries.”

Speaking on lead track “finback”, Andrzejewski adds: 

“‘finback’ is a very entangled piece. A note in one instrument is passed on to the next instrument. Which also means that we’re really dependent on each other at every moment. Only towards the end of the piece we break our own logic and everything flows into each other…”

threads to knot tracklist:

1. threadfin
2. finback
3. backlog
4. logline
5. lineage
6. agelong
7. longingly

The trio have a handful of European shows lined up for November. All shows are co-headlined with another of Goller’s projects, Skylla, which in this incarnation is Goller and Andrzejewski playing as a duo.

11/13 London, UK @ Vortex
11/14 Newtown, UK @ Hafan Yr Afon
11/15 Birmingham, UK @ Hexagon Theatre, MAC
11/22 Berlin, Germany @ Berghain Kantine 

Goller also brings Skylla to The Rose Hill in Brighton, UK, on 27 September.

For a taste of what to expect, here’s a video of two pieces performed by Goller and TRAINING at Berlin’s Factory Studio last year:

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