Steps

Norwegian pianist Kjetil Husebo's Steps marks a drastic shift from the album that precedes it, Morphing Between Spaces and Phases (OSP 005 LP), released in 2014 under his Skyggespill alias. Steps also diverges from Husebo's other earlier albums (Contradictions (OSP 002 CD, 2012) and Sources (OSP 003 CD, 2013)), on which he combined the utterly complex sound universe of the grand piano with live sampling and electronic wizardry, and from his 2010 album as Optical Substance, Adaptation (OSP 001 CD), on which the music is composed, programmed, and produced in collaboration with several guest musicians. Although Steps is Husebo's third piano album, it is his first entirely acoustic endeavor, distinguished by it's exclusion of any components of composed, electronic music. The music on Steps was improvised and recorded in a short session at Rainbow Studio, Oslo, in December 2014. Alone with a Steinway model D grand piano, Husebo explores his personal, melodic, abstract, rhythmical, playful, meditative music as he has never done before, situating his musical landscape between jazz, contemporary music, classical, and folk music. Engineered and mixed by the legendary Jan Erik Kongshaug as master of ceremony.