Judith Wegmann - Le Souffle du Temps

The Guardian 60

HatHut

Judith Wegmann, a Swiss jazz improviser and classical pianist, makes beguiling sounds on a prepared piano. This album of improvisations inhabits a spangly, half-lit world of forlorn voices and jittery winged beasts. The title translates as “the breath of time”; the subtitle, slightly laborious, is “X (Rétro-) Perspectives”. What I like is how elusive the playing is, meticulous but still indefinable. Characters appear and flit around without any sense of hurry – there’s a grace to the aimlessness. Muted strings twang and clatter gently like a ghostly production line while lonely tunes meander through the din. There is a recurring impression of bells tolling somewhere in the near distance. For me the most satisfying moments are when the sounds go deepest, clangiest and most consonant, the moments when Wegmann appears the least precious and the most gutsy.