ECSTASY THROUGH ASCETICISM
Nik Bärtschs own trademark sound, the RITUAL GROOVE MUSIC, points out to the fundamental concept of his musical thinking. The music shows a close affinity to architecturally organized space and is governed by the principles of repetition and reduction as well as by interlocking rhythms.
A piece of music can be entered, inhabited like a room. It moves forward and transforms through obsessive circular movements, superimposition of different meters and micro-interplay. The listeners attention is directed toward minimal variations and phrasing.
Also see under Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, Nik Bärtsch’s Mobile etc
What the media says:
New York Times Mr Bärtsch, a Swiss pianist, makes accrual-based music of clean power and firm insistence.
Downbeat Bärtsch’s music of delicious dread is layered, contrapuntal, hypnotic and psychologically fascinating.
Guardian Swiss pianist-composer Nik Bärtsch has been injecting electronica and minimalism with soul, jazzy hipness and danceable bounce with his Ronin Ensemble since 2001, and Awase deepens the group’s expressiveness of tone and texture.
Stereogum Bärtsch’s piano shimmers, one perfectly struck note at a time; drummer Kaspar Rast sets a slow, precisely ticking beat; Haslebacher lets his notes escape slowly and cautiously; and bassist Thomy Jordi is trying his best to disguise himself as Bärtsch’s left hand.
The book
Nik Bärtsch Listening Music, Movement, Mind
LISTENING: Music – Movement – Mind is a conceptual and practical book about the creative relationship between mind and body in the context of music and martial arts. Musician and composer Nik Bärtsch, founder of the so-called Ritual Groove Music, has developed techniques that offer musicians and martial artists useful and surprising tools to support, focus and simplify learning and creative processes in many fields of artistic activity and daily life.
The book is based on the long-standing experience of Nik Bärtsch and his wife Andrea Pfisterer as aikido practitioners, performers in live music, cultural entrepreneurs and teachers of music and physical techniques. Through essays and pictures, interviews, exercises and games, the book conveys the authors’ poetic understanding of body and mind and inspires the individual creativity and consciousness of the readers, regardless of their backgrounds. It also documents the stages of Bärtsch’s musical development as composer, solo pianist and bandleader of Ronin and Mobile, two formations that enjoy international recognition.
“Sumptuously produced by noted arts imprint Lars Müller Publishers, ambitious in its scope, and bristling with thought provoking observations, Bärtsch’s defiantly unconventional volume rarely shoots wide of the mark.”
– JazzJournal
«Kann das gutgehen, wenn ein Künstler ein Buch über sich und seine Kunst schreibt? Im Fall von Nik Bärtsch durchaus.»
– NZZ Neue Zürcher Zeitung
SOLO - When The Clouds Clear
NIK BÄRTSCH'S MOBILE - Abu Dhabi Ritual
NIK BÄRTSCH'S RONIN
NIK BÄRTSCH'S RONIN
Nik Bärtsch's Mobile Ritual SEE
Nik Bärtsch's Mobile (acoustic)
Nik Bärtsch's Mobile & ballet
