With These Hands

A single sound begins — not as a command, but as a suggestion. From there, a world unfolds.

With These Hands, the title track from this collaboration between Jan Bang and Ensemble Modern, moves like weather over shifting terrain: fluid, alive, always forming. Built from a series of open-ended modules, the piece invites the listener into an evolving soundscape: part score, part improvisation, part memory.

Every sound feels physical. Instruments breathe, scrape, shimmer; the performers' gestures shape the music in real time, their bodies in conversation with the instruments. This is not composition in a traditional sense, but a space for listening and shaping, where sound is both structured and set free.

Rather than layering, the piece creates spatial depth - a kind of sonic topography where each voice finds its own dimension. Caverns of resonance, filaments of breath, sudden fractures, glowing stillness. The music moves, but remains coherent, built not by uniform effort, but by many hands working attentively, responsively.

With These Hands reflects the act of making: not monumental, but intimate. A process of care, craft, and continual release into open air.

As David Toop says in his sleeve notes to the album:

“Languages of improvisation folded together and opened out like a Japanese orihon book, concerted effort, a collaborative composition of many hands, work as light as building an instrument that is air.”

Between Them

Jan Bang and Eivind Aarset have a long history of musical dialogue — both as collaborators and as a duo. Between Them distils that connection into its essence: a piece that is spacious, subtle, and deeply attuned.

At its core, the track captures the sound of two artists in synergy. It is luxurious without excess, atmospheric without vagueness, evocative without prescribing meaning. Listeners are invited to bring their own experiences — the music opens gently, allowing memory and emotion to surface in personal, unforced ways.