Achim Kirchmair Trio feat. David Jarh:

Album „Sunkeeper“ (o-Tone Music, Marz 2020)

 

A sound for time-outs with a good cause

With his current album "Sunkeeper", the jazz guitarist and student of the string virtuoso Harry Pepl, Achim Kirchmair, originally from Tyrol, has succeeded in creating an album that is masterfully elegant, full of compositional sleekness and subdued modesty. Together with his two regular musicians – Serbian drummer Andjelko Stupar and Ali Angerer on tuba, the trio has grown to a quartet this time. With the commitment of top Slovenian trumpeter David Jarh, Achim Kirchmair has fulfilled a long-cherished wish of his.

The majority of the 9 pieces were composed by the bandleader and guitarist, who makes an unmistakable effort not to get trapped in any genre. His different styles and creative approaches are put in tune with incredible ease. David Jarh on the trumpet performs emotional solos, taking up Kirchmair's ideas with virtuosity when playing and varies them. The quartet manages to create a convincing band sound with plenty of ease and playfulness.

Achim Kirchmair also wishes to tell us something with this album "Sunkeeper". In concreto, he supports the 4Oceans project, a human initiative to free the oceans from plastic. His wish is for us to be able to sit on beautiful beaches for ages to come and listen to good music.

This new album "Sunkeeper" could be the right soundtrack dedicated to the seas.

 

Achim Kirchmair Trio feat. David Jarh:
Aktuelles Album „Sunkeeper“ (o-Tone Music, Marz 2020)

The Tyrolean guitarist Achim Kirchmair, his band and their new album "Sunkeeper" (O-Tone Music) prove in a really impressive way that modern jazz does not necessarily have to include difficult and complex sounds, but that it can be more than just exciting in its more accessible form.

Achim Kirchmair is known to be a sort of "cross-over" guitarist whose style cannot easily be placed into any single category. If you look at his previous work over various projects (including Dee Dolen, frida), it immediately becomes clear that you are dealing with a musician who seems to feel at home in a wide variety of genres, which is also particularly evident in his stylistically greatly multifaceted 2018 album "Going to Ladakh". So the question arises as to which mode is the Tyrolean musician, who can count Austrian jazz legend Harry Pepl among his teachers, aiming at for "Sunkeeper" – does he continue the path of stylistic diversity or pursue a different direction from before?

Well, basically both are happening. Achim Kirchmair, together with his band, brings the jazzy aspect of his music to the fore, even more than on the previous album. Not to the extent that influences from other genres no longer matter at all, but noticeable nonetheless. Of course, elements from fusion, blues and rock can still be found in all nine pieces, but just in a more low-dose form. So the album doesn't really have anything to do with a complete shift towards the classic variety of jazz.

A jazz sound that barely touches the ground

Achim Kirchmair and his colleagues Ali Angerer (tuba), Andjelko Stupar (drums) as well as his guest on this album, the Slovenian trumpeter David Jarh, manage to set their own musical accents on "Sunkeeper" in an extremely elegant fashion. What immediately catches your ear is this wonderfully light-footed, playful, emotionally warm and, at the same time, very genuine tone, which carries the sound of the music through the tracks. It almost seems as if the four gentlemen are, more than anything else, floating through their pieces than actually playing through them with their feet on the ground.

The Tyrolean and his band understand very well how to render their more complex way of playing into something flowing and therefore accessible. The compositions and improvisations flow seamlessly into one another, the lively back and forth between the musicians ensures wonderful alternation; the quiet, and at certain moments even seemingly spherical segments draw you in just like the powerful and experimental ones do.

It's this unconventional mix paired with an extraordinary passion for music that makes the difference here. The way in which the four instrumentalists weave the individual elements together, place their melodies and rhythmic structures in suspenseful and steadily thickening arcs, and how they skilfully turn up the intensity, testifies to a broad understanding of how to create a certain mood with music that captivates you immediately.

"Sunkeeper" has become an album that appeals to the mind as well as the soul, summoning you to listen intensively while excitingly entertaining you.

Michael Ternai

 

Reviews for "Sunkeeper"

"Kirchmair's elegant pickings nestle gently around the discreetly driving grooves of drummer Andjelko Stupar and the fine bass tones of tuba player Ali Angerer, only to make way for David Jarh's lyrical playing. A successful balancing act that does justice to the title of the album, which is often flooded with light." Jazzthetik

"With "Sunkeeper", the Tyrolean guitarist Achim Kirchmair managed to successfully create an album that conveys a wonderful lightness. Fusion jazz rich in elegance, compositional sleekness and discreet unobtrusiveness." Concerto

"This time the Slovenian trumpeter David Jarh joins his usual trio [...] and provides for an additional melodic level. [...] Very original and, and often as not, extremely well done." Concerto

"A manifesto of improvising serenity, of harmonic nobility" Jazzthing
"The tracks of the Kirchmair Trio, complemented by trumpeter David Jarh as a guest, sway lightly

between the genres, jazzy, loungy [...]" Tiroler Tageszeitung

"Achim Kirchmair lets chords swell, puts delicate flageolet tones over them, lets the strings vibrate for a long time, bell-like and disembodied, somewhere between Pat Metheny and John Abercrombie." Westfälische Nachricht"A sound for time-outs hat is reminiscent of Pat Metheny or Bill Frisell." Kurier am Sonntag

 

Achim Kirchmair ( AUT)

guitar, composition

 

Achim Kirchmair (AUT ) guitar, composition www.achimkirchmair.com

 

Born in Landeck, Tyrol, he discovered his love for music at the age of 18. An autodidact and wanderer between styles, he studied jazz guitar at the 

 

University of Music and Performing Arts Graz under Harry Pepl. He completed his education with workshops by Mike Stern, Joe Pass, Bill Frisell, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Harry Stoika, Jim Black, and Nguyén Lé. Kirchmair is a bandleader and, like many of his music colleagues, plays in various formations. The intention of his musical work is to create an individual form of expression - far from any stylistic definition. His music, which is a fusion of different styles (jazz, rock, fusion, groove, world music), opens up an infinite well of tones, sounds, and rhythms from which he shapes his guitar playing. Since 2001, he has been working with the Tyrolean singer Ingrid frida Moser, having founded together the musical band projects "Dee Dolen" (jazz-world crossover) and "frida" (electronic jazz). Since 2004 the focus has been on the project "Dee Dolen Music from the Heart of Europe".

Diskography:
Achim Kirchmair Trio - Cd Trijok “spring” (1994 / Jok-records)
Die Dolen - Cd “ungschorn” (2003 / Extraplatte)
Die Dolen - Cd “live@Platoo” (2004 / Jok-records)
Die Dolen - Cd “Schneefleckn” (2008 / Ats-records)
Die Dolen - Cd “live@ORF Radio Kulturhaus Innsbruck” (2011 / Jok-records) Dee Dolen - Doppel live Cd “Moments of life - live Tour” (2013/ Ats-records) Achim Kirchmair Trio - "Going to Ladakh" ( 2018/ O-tone music )
Achim Kirchmair Trio feat. David Jarh - “sunkeeper” ( 2020/ O-tone music )

 

 

David Jarh ( SI)
trumpet, flugelhorn, composition

David Jarh works as a big band soloist for the radio and television company Slovenija. He teaches trumpet at the Music Academy in Ljubljana. He has worked together and played with many world- famous jazz musicians such as Art Farmer, Bob Brookmeyer, Paquito de Riveira, Bill Berry and Bob Mintzer. Bobby Shew, to name a few. For him, it is important to touch people's hearts with his way of playing the trumpet and his compositions. He loves lyrical melodies.

 

 

Ali Angerer ( AUT ) tuba, composition

www.aliangerer.co

 

 

Musical collaboration, among many others, with Wolfgang Puschnig, Idris Muhammad, Anthony Braxton, Sam Rivers, Howard Johnson, Bob Stewart, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Vienna Art Orchestra, Out Of Blue, Zeena Parkins, Peter Massink, Striped Roses, Makoto Jano, Pawan Kumar, Alvin Baptiste, Jarek Smietana, Elliot Sharp, Leopoldo Fleming, Herbert Joos, Ivo Sedlacek, Miharu Y. Noguchi, Khalid Kouhen, Alpine Aspects, Janus Ensemble, Capella Con Durezza and Heavy Tuba. internationale festivals:

Wiesen (A), Saalfelden (A), London, Cheltenham (GB), Inntöne
Festival, JazzArt-Wels (A), Berlin, Burghausen, Worms, Mannheim, Schloss Elmau (D), Le Mans (F) , Toulouse (F), Moskau (SU), Krakau (PL), Helsinki (SF), Bratislava (SK), Algier (ALG), Tarbarka (TUN), Trencin (SLO), Tokio (JPN) und Zanzibar (TAN).

 

Andjelko Stupar ( SRB ) drums 

Born in Zrenjanin, Serbia.

He started playing drums in local bands at the age of 14. In 1996, he moved to Graz and studied jazz drums under Alex Deutsch and Manfred Josel at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.

He graduated in 2002 with a Master of Arts. During his studies and up to the present, he has played with international jazz musicians, such as Mark Murphy, Sheila Jordan, Jay Clayton, Claudio Fasiolli, Miles Griffith, Red Holloway, Karl Ratzer, Fritz Pauer, Harald Neuwirth, Ed Neumeister, Renato Chicco, Marc Abrams, Oliver Kennt, Jure Pukl, Stjepko Gut, Dusko Goykovich and many more.

He lives in Graz, Austria.