Ankündigung: Die Pianistin Sophie Agnel, die erst vor wenigen Monaten ein gemeinsames Album mit Joke Lanz und Michael Vatcher herausgebracht hat, veröffentlicht in den nächsten Tagen ihre neue Kollaboration mit dem Saxophonisten Martin Küchen. Die Aufnahme kam in zwei improvisierten Sessions in einer schwedischen Kirche zustande, bei dem neben dem Sopranino-Saxofon und einem alten Flügel noch Percussion zum Einsatz kommt. Das Album erscheint als CD bei Thanatosis. 

In einem Begleittext von Brian Olewnick heißt es: “Having expectations and then being pleasantly disabused of those expectations. In my experience listening to the music of both Martin Küchen and Sophie Agnel, I’ve often detected what I perceive to be a (sometimes hidden) strain of romanticism, a deep and dark vaguely lyrical content that one doesn’t routinely identify with free improvisers. With Küchen, this could be heard most prominently in his solo recordings such as ‘The Lie and the Orphanage’ (Mathka, 2010) or ‘Hellstorm’ (Mathka, 2012). I had also heard Agnel give a memorable solo piano recital in Västerås, Sweden in 2012 where the closest comparison I could think of (not really that close) was to some of the music of Fredric Rzewski. So I came into this release with some of those expectations in mind. But no. Instead we have four pieces, each one a quiet, even delicate exploration of sound, combining gently probing piano passages, including relatively fragile sounds from within the instrument to soft, if perhaps forlorn and even strangulated moans from the reeds. The soundscape created is sparse in one sense but really quite well populated with “small”, beautifully related objects, bits that reflect off of one another in a manner that implies seriously deep listening on the part of both musicians. A lovely, thoughtful set all around, one that happily upset my expectations.”