When the world locked down in March last year due to the Covis-19 pandemic, The Danish Kasper Staub Trio – pianist Staub, bass player Jens Mikkel and drummer Anders Vestergaard decided to try and make music, even at a distance. «Isolation Tapes», the third album of the trio that was founded in 2010 in Aarhus, a 28-minute EP was recorded when Staub, Mikkel and Vestergaard played in their own bedrooms, then passing the recordings segments forward to each other to build upon.

The pieces were recorded with birds in the background, on an out-of-tune piano and, obviously, limited recording equipment. This Trio has built its interplay on close physical presence but now was challenged to create and to respond to one of the most unsettling and bizarre events in recent history. The individual tracks from Isolation Tapes were released at one-week intervals during February and March 2021, before assembled into the EP release.

The sound quality is far from the studio standards and few glitches in the sound quality spice this home recording. But the spontaneous joy of creating music, the close interplay and the strong melodic core of this Trio are still there. The atmosphere is more contemplative as these strange times dictate, but lively, playful and becomes more optimistic, along with the latter «Tapes».

Eyal Hareuveni   

Kasper Staub (p), Jens Mikkel (b), Anders Vestergaard (dr)