Thomas Strønen

...omposer, arranger, improviser, producer, and bandleader. He has participated in or self-created some 70 albums on his own and in cooperation with a wide variety of talent, including the bands Food (with Iain Ballamy, Arve Henriksen, Mats Eilertsen, and Fennesz), Humcrush (with Ståle Storløkken), Parish (with Bobo Stenson), his own ever-evolving Time Is a Blind Guide, Eilertsen's trio with Harmen Fraanje, and the Maria Kannegaard Trio. He has also appeared on and/or composed for recordings by many including Eivind Aarset, Nils Petter Molvaer, John Taylor, and Sidsel Endresen. Strønen graduated from the Music Conservatory of Trondheim, Norway in 1999 after studying jazz and composition for six years. Since his student days he has been involved with improvised music in many different contexts. He is an interactive musician who enjoys creating different musical forms to generate unexpected results. Strønen is a melodic, almost circular drummer who plays both acoustic and electronic music. He has record deals with Norway's Rune Grammofon and ECM. His most celebrated recordings are Humcrush (2004), Parish (2006), six Food albums divided between the two labels from 2002 to 2015, plus two Time Is a Blind Guide albums, including 2018's Lucus. Also noteworthy are his three albums with Mats Eilertsen's trio, particularly 2019's And Then Comes the Night. In 2021 the drummer issued Bayou, a trio set for ECM with clarinetist Marthe Lea and pianist Ayumi Tanaka. After three years of intense touring and recording activity, he released Relations in 2024, a 12-track album that included two solo pieces buoyed by duets with alternating pianists Craig Taborn and Jorge Rossy, Norwegian singer, kantele player, and folk musician Sinikka Langeland, and saxophonist Chris Potter. Back in 2021 he reassembled his acoustic Time Is a Blind Guide for a third album. The lineup included pianist Tanaka, bassist Ole Morten Vågan, cellist Leo Svensson Sander (in place of Lucy Railton) and violinist Håkon Aase. At times the string instruments create a chamber trio-unit dialoguing with piano and percussion; mostly, however, the quintet offers a group pulse. Titled Off Stillness, it was recorded at Rainbow Studio, Oslo in 2021, and mixed in Munich in 2024. The recording was released in January 2026. ~ Thom Jurek