Begin deze maand (mei 2018) verscheen met enige vertraging het tweede nummer van Jazzsim waarin in een pagina-vullend artikel aandacht wordt besteed aan de muziek van "Leaving Traces". Hiervoor werd ik even na de release afgelopen najaar al geïnterviewd door Angelique van Os, en ik moet zeggen dat ik me er al bijna bij neer had gelegd dat het waarschijnlijk 'wegbezuinigd' was in ruil voor advertentie-ruimte ;). Toch bevond ik me sinds begin april elke week wel een keertje in een kiosk waar ik voorzichtig informeerde of 'de nieuwe Jazzism' al verkrijgbaar was misschien. Begin mei lag hij er dan eindelijk. Vluchtig bladerde ik naar de inhoudsopgave en toen snel naar pagina 21 om te kijken of het er echt in stond, en jawel :). "Dit is mijn moment" voelt als iets wat ik niet gezegd kan hebben denk ik meteen (blijkbaar toch), maar ik geloof graag dat ze gelijk heeft, die Sietske van Oktober afgelopen jaar ;)...
Review Jazzism
★★★★ - Jazzism (magazine).
“...Leaving Traces impresses, with wayward forms (...), suite-like pieces and surprising twists” - “ the international quintet has been together for about six years and forms audibly a strong collective that creates space for one another”
Noah Preminger on "Where it starts again"
"Sietske Roscam Abbings album highlights a beautiful voice and excellent compositions. I can hear the history of the music coming from her, but I can't pinpoint one or two influences in particular. To me, this shows a unique voice - something every artist works towards achieving." - Noah Preminger
SRF2 Kultur (Swiss radio) feature with interview
"One of the most refreshing voices I've heard in the past weeks". Here's the clip of december 16th's broadcast of the show Jazz Aktuell at SRF2 Kultur featuring music of "Where it starts again" and an interview. Presentation is in Germain with fragments of the interview in English. (Presentation Jodok Hess).
Here's a transcript of the sproken parts translated in English.
[Audio: "A day like this"]
No wonder she’s laughing, Sietske Roscam Abbing, here in Jazz Aktuell at SRF2Kultur – after all she’s just about to make a good name for herself, even abroad.
"Where It Starts Again", that’s the name of her new CD, and on it, her and her pianist Dirk Balthaus‘ songs are interpreted by an ideal band: a band, that is, which constantly creates some creative interference. This way, Sietske’s songs never sound too sweet. Almost a way of auto-correction favourable to her, it seems, for sweet things always have appealed to her, she told me, even back in the days when she was mostly listening to singer-songwriters.
[Audio: about Sietske, 00:00:24,37]
Pretty soon jazz came into the picture, however, and Sietske used to travel half an hour by train to get to a jam session where, one night, she met, jammed and had a great time with pianist Dirk Balthaus. Little did she realize that she was soon going to meet him again, this time at Amsterdam conservatory as her piano teacher.
[Audio: How Sietske met Dirk, 00:00:21,93]
Dirk Balthaus and Sietske Roscam Abbing start working together and composing, sometimes as a team, sometimes each for him/herself. And the way Sietske writes music actually reminds me of a director more than a composer. She would always try to make a picture of what the music was going to be about, she told me. All I Need, for instance, is a song about being lonesome in the midst of many people. So she started by thinking about how somebody would feel in this particular situation: what are the sounds, the smells? What does it look like? And all these impressions together would then result in this specific chemical reaction making the music sound. ..
[Audio: "All I need"]
(thanks to Jodok Hess for the translation).