New Album: Björn Meyer, Convergence

With Convergence, his second solo album, Swedish-born bassist Björn Meyer further develops music on the blueprint established with his recording Provenance (2017), making use of the technical potential of the bass guitar to establish striking sonorities and grained textures while also being acutely aware of the acoustic space in which his sounds emerge. In its review of Björn’s previous solo statement, London Jazz News found the bassist demonstrating “that melodic high-jinks and emotional intensity aren’t just for those who inhabit the treble stave. Meyer’s bass sings.” Here the bass player’s atmospheric explorations conjure images in the mind. His technical innovations appear expanded in a programme of songful quality. In brief it feels complete in itself, more than a document of instrumental prowess.

Meyer’s musical material is realized in real time, played ‘live’ in the studio, with effects and delays and reverbs – colors of the modern bassist’s palette – integrated in the moment. The pieces heard on Convergence came together gradually: “In the first few tours after the release of Provenance I played mostly material from that album. However, new inspirations, ideas and ‘accidents’ started finding their ways into the performances. In a quite slow but steady way these new directions stayed with me, developed over time, and grew up to become a fully new repertoire. Experiences gathered in the last few years of more intense solo playing have converged into this album. The many solo performances have also allowed me to go deeper in my research of the six-string electric bass. New playing techniques, sounds and ways of improvising and composing for and with this instrument have found direct ways into my musical practice, and not only in a solo context.”

This journey to the heart of the bass guitar has sometimes involved oblique approaches and ‘preparations’ akin to Cagean experimental tradition. On the improvisation called “Rewired”, for instance, Meyer uses magnets and metal bars to change the vibration of the strings, going further on “Magnétique” whose muted and metallic sound is achieved “thanks to a special construction of magnets, a spring, and some drops of superglue.” The tapping style deployed on “Magnétique”, moreover, makes it seem almost like a percussion piece, suggestive of the cross-rhythms of mbira music. Meyer is continually exploring the possibilities of his instrument, whether emphasising that this is a bass guitar – see the elegant polymetric plucking of “Gravity” – or setting free broad swaths of ambient sound as on “Drift”. Each piece becomes an episode in an unfolding narrative.

“At some point in the mixing and sequencing process, Manfred Eicher made a boldly wonderful suggestion to rearrange the tracks, and made ‘Convergence’ the opening track. That decision set in motion a very strong dramaturgical flow that ends beautifully with ‘Nesodden’,” Meyer notes. “It became a story that could best be told in this way, one that I find sparks imagination and is full of surprises while still allowing for contemplation.”

Convergence is launched with a release concert on January 24 in the context of the Sparks and Vision Festival in Regensburg, Germany.

Convergence was recorded at Bavaria Musikstudios, Munich, in September 2024, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Visit online at bjornmeyer.com/