Best of 2019 #70: Christoph Irniger Pilgrim – “Crosswinds”

The mercurial personality of Crosswinds contrives to never fully reveal its true nature.  It holds something back at all times, and the apex of the album’s homestretch doesn’t manifest a ringing clarity.  It’s as if words Christoph Irniger devised a complex jigsaw puzzle that purposefully omitted a few strategic pieces.  The section of a person’s face comprising their left eye and cheek.  A center window of a building’s penthouse suite.  A swath of the night sky that may or may not have contained the final stars in a constellation.  This album forces the listener to fill in some of the blanks on their own, and the music is sufficiently sparse and minimalist as to give the listener’s imagination all kinds of room for guesswork and creativity.  This in itself is pretty damn intriguing, but nothing compared to the sensation that with each subsequent listen, it’s never the same puzzle pieces missing from the picture.  Outstanding.

Your album personnel:  Christoph Irniger (tenor sax), Stefan Aeby (piano), Dave Gisler (guitar), Raffaele Bossard (double bass), and Michael Stulz (drums).

Released on Intakt Records.

Music from Zürich, Switzerland.

I wrote about this album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Listen | Read more | Available at:  Bandcamp – Amazon