Swiss pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch creates playful and carefully balanced works containing both space and riffs. There might be as much listening going on as there is playing, which points to a spiritual focus, trust, and discipline that comes from Bärtsch's avid practice of the Japanese martial art Aikido. In his electric group, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin (after the freelance Japanese warriors who served no master), there is slow-building, ever-shifting, sensual groove reductionism.

With newfound freedom and flexibility, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, now a quartet, meditates on repeating patterns, or “Moduls” as he dubs his works, in what he describes as “Zen-funk” and “ritual groove.” Those repeating patterns have also earned the label “minimalist”, but the quartet wanders freely between funk, jazz, new music, or Japanese ritual music. Pianist Bärtsch, reedsman Sha, bassist Thomy Jordi, and drummer Kaspar Rast play at all kinds of accents and subtle syncopations, shifting downbeats, interlocking rhythms, and hypnotic motifs which slowly evolve and build to dramatic effect.

Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin perform music from their latest, Awase (a term from Aikido which means “moving together, coming together”), in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here: