Name: Potsdam
Brand: Iiro Rantala

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

ACTLP9946-1

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Colour

black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-03-25

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

PIAS

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

0614427994615

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1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

ACT9946-2

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "ACT9946-2"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

0614427994622

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "0614427994622"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Iiro Rantala

Genre GB

Jazz

Label GB

Act Music

Iiro Rantala plays the piano with “emotional magnetism and musical intelligence.” He has a “virtuosic prowess as an improviser capable of enormous idiomatic and emotional range.” This praise from the American magazine Downbeat’s review of the Finnish pianist’s third studio-recorded solo album for ACT, <i>My Finnish Calendar</i> (2019), sums up the astonishing variety which people who know his playing well might almost start to take for granted. This is the emotional and stylistic versatility which Ranta-la brings to the live solo recital. It is a form he is drawn to strongly; there can be very few pianists who have explored the art of solo playing quite as intensively and consistently as Rantala. A typical recital will contain, among other things, pieces from his previous solo albums for ACT - ‘Lost Heroes’, ‘My Working Class Hero’ and ‘My Finnish Calendar’. As he explains, “I like the form of the solo recital because of the freedom and responsibility I have. Freedom comes from the fact of being alone on stage and responsibility from the fact that I can’t really rely on anything, except myself.” 

<i>Potsdam</i>, recorded live in concert at Nikolaisaal in Potsdam on 27 November 2021 is, however, the first time that one of Rantala’s many live solo recitals has been released as an album by ACT. It is a very fine exposition indeed of the contrast and the continuity of which he is capable, not just in the shape of the recital as a whole, but also within individual tunes. After a beautiful and welcoming ‘Twentytwentyone’, Rantala launches into ‘Time for Rag’, which sounds like the accompaniment for a madcap Buster Keaton film. The central section of John Lennon’s ‘Woman’ is quite clearly inspired by the driving R&amp;B style of Richard Tee, a pianist whom Rantala particularly admires, but this leads masterfully into an ending which is at first wistful and calm, but then troubled by the Finn leaning into the piano and creating a dark and discomforting mood by plucking a low string.

Potsdam

Music GB