For two and a half tracks Until I Met You the new collaboration between Jakob Bro and Midori Takada sounds decidedly forlorn and spare to the point of skeletal or spectral. With the percussionist Takada dwelling over her marimba as Bro takes a typically inquisitive approach to an acoustic guitar, when the duo try something more steeped and meditative in the opening part of ‘Landscape II, Simplicity’ with its reverberating chimes and rustling bells the pretence scarcely works to mask the encompassing air of desolation.
Then the slow bloom of Bro’s acoustic spreads warmth throughout the scene. ‘Landscape II, Simplicity’ turns into a fine pastoral almost worthy of an advert for the down-home caramel and butter confection Werther’s Original if it wasn’t for the shapely ponderousness of Bro’s lines and the echoes – like from canyons, mines or other crevices – which Takada’s percussion renders in the distance, these slender clunks and bell chimes eventually encompassing the hollowed-out screen in what now feels like more of a ritual cleansing.
The rest of the album proves more upbeat. ‘Infinity’ is almost jaunty as the duo trace a shared melody on guitar and keys, with a few plings keeping a shopkeeper’s form of time as Bro and Takada amble gladly in each other’s company. Despite its title ‘Landscape I, Austerity’ finds both vigour and leisure in the limpid bars of Takada’s marimba and Bro’s sun-kissed guitar before bounding off in the final third in search of new pools and pastures. And the delicate ‘Sparkles’ is like a jewel glimmering, a fruit ripening or a butterfly transforming in the mid air, possessing all of the patience and wonder which those things might entail before the record ekes to a close through the wriggling bars and hesitant plucks of ‘Floating Forest’, a curious and vine-strewn thicket.
Equally inspired by West African and gamelan rhythm making and the minimalist compositions of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, in the early eighties Takada formed the Mkwaju Ensemble with Junko Arase and Yoji Sadanari and collaborated with such pioneers as Hideki Matsutake, Joe Hisaishi and Toru Takemitsu before releasing her kaleidoscopic and much cherished solo album Through the Looking Glass in 1983. More collaborative and soundtrack projects followed alongside the odd and sometimes overlooked solo effort with Tree of Life from 1999 another standout.
More than a second wind, in 2017 the Geneva-based label WRWTFWW Record began to reissue some of her old records like Through the Looking Glass, Lunar Cruise and Tree of Life while also facilitating a couple of new albums. You Who Are Leaving to Nirvana and Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter, both released in 2022, variously engaged with Buddhist chants and the ‘Nhemamusasa’ of Zimbabwe, a Shona song traditionally played on the mbira.
Jakob Bro meanwhile established himself as a leader with the release of Pearl River in 2007 and the ensuing Balladeering trilogy, records which pitted his spacious and searching guitar against the sensitive double bass of Thomas Morgan and such jazz luminaries as Paul Motian, Lee Konitz and Bill Frisell. With some of the same resolute spareness and deep melodic sensibility – a grounded ethos which might tease and beguile the listener while seeming eminently capable of drifting off into the aether – he has continued to release music on ECM Records whether at the head of small ensembles, paying tribute to Motian with the saxophonist Joe Lovano or playing live with fellow Danes like Palle Mikkelborg and Marilyn Mazur.
The relationship between Bro and Takada commenced a couple of years ago with a commission from Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. They have since toured, appearing at the 2025 Expo in Osaka back in April with the Danish guitarist a frequent visitor to the country and apparently almost fluent in Japanese. Their album Until I Met You shows an easy chemistry and was captured in Tokyo last autumn, with its release handled by Loveland Music, previously an outlet for Bro’s own records which is now flourishing as an independent label and has released work by Mark Turner, Maria Laurette Friis and Thomas Morgan so far this year.
