| Continuum | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | Nik Bärtsch's Mobile |
| Cover: | Continuum (Nik Bärtsch album).jpg |
| Released: | April 22, 2016 |
| Recorded: | March 2015 |
| Studio: | Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Length: | 68:19 |
| Label: | ECM ECM 2464 |
| Producer: | Manfred Eicher |
| Chronology: | Nik Bärtsch |
| Prev Title: | Nik Bärtsch's Ronin Live |
| Prev Year: | 2012 |
| Next Title: | Awase |
| Next Year: | 2018 |
Continuum is an album by Swiss pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch's Mobile recorded in Switzerland in 2015 and released 2016 on the ECM label.[1]
The AllMusic review by Thom Jurek states "Continuum is European jazz rife with funkiness; it's just more specific sound. It may require a closer listen, at least initially, but once experienced, its depth and constancy are unmistakable". They also selected it as one of their Favorite Jazz Albums of 2016.[2]
PopMatters' John Garratt said "While their playing can be every bit as spritely as Ronin, Continuum captures Mobile in a low, pensive light. This isn’t to say that the music isn’t as successful overall, it’s just that establishing a warm sense of intimacy with it is going to take a little work on your part".[3]
All About Jazz reviewers said, "With its variety of styles, Continuum is the best of Mobile's albums to date, despite the very high bar set from the beginning"[4] and "there's little doubt that those who've become fans of Ronin's more eminently groove-laden music will be (if they weren't already) ready for this group's richer compositional rigor...for whom the term Continuum is, indeed, wholly appropriate for its broader-spectrum'd musical treasures".[5]
London Jazz News' John L. Walters noted "Bärtsch's music is always urgent but never in a hurry, and his sidemen follow the leader’s calm self-discipline. What improvisation there is takes place within the broad structures of the compositions – Mobile may not be a ‘blowing’ band in the jazz sense of the word, but it interprets the music as if it were".[6]
In JazzTimes, Steve Greenlee wrote "There is a clean, icy quality to this music — a hallmark of Scandinavian jazz — that invites comparisons to electronica and to the work of Philip Glass and film composer Thomas Newman... Continuum, beginning to end, is mesmerizing".[7]
All compositions by Nik Bärtsch.