“During the last years, Kalle and I had the opportunity to work on original duo music without much pressure from outside and finally recorded this program in September 2022. I have always enjoyed listening to and exploring ensemble music that uses multiple instruments being capable of providing harmonic information. This certainly requires deep listening on various levels - pitch-wise, chord-wise, register-wise, rhythmically and texturally. The duo combination of piano and acoustic guitar puts these possibilities and challenges under a magnifying glass. The analogy of a “meta-instrument” seems especially fitting for this combination which showcases two instruments with very different properties that still make a lot of textural overlaps possible. Ideally their sounds blend into each other, one seems like an extension of the other. The pieces that I chose for this duo are song-inspired but also largely reflect some modernist compositional tendencies. It’s as though Joni Mitchell, Henry Threadgill and Elliott Carter had decided to move to the same neighborhood, at least for a short sojourn, to work on an interactive project”

- Achim Kaufmann



This is our first duo recording and it took almost two years to develop the music, yet we were not in a hurry and we let the music grow organically. Our decision to use acoustic guitar made the project unique for me. This project took me back to teenager years when I was overwhelmed by the acoustic work of Ralph Towner, Jimmy Page and Julian Bream. Finally I found a chance to integrate this in my music with Achim. For this project I had to tame the acoustic guitar again. The music is a collective meditation on influences from Miles Davis over Morton Feldman to Robert Johnson but all original compositions by Achim and me. I think this music shows new sides of our musical journey.

- Kalle Kalima