On September 26, 2025, Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel and his long-standing trio partners—bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade—will release Tokyo (ECM Records), their third outing as a unit. If their earlier albums hinted at an almost telepathic bond, Tokyo confirms it beyond doubt, offering a set that is at once adventurous, lyrical, and deeply interactive.
DownBeat once described their rapport as carrying “something of the empathy of the Bill Evans Trio,” and Tokyo shows just how much that empathy has deepened. The album’s opening track, a delicate rendering of Keith Jarrett’s “Lisbon Stomp”, sets the tone: intricate, conversational, and fearless in its harmonic exploration. From there, the program tilts toward Muthspiel’s own captivating originals, weaving through balladic lyricism (“Pradela,” “Traversia”), subtle folk flavors (“Strumming,” “Flight”), oblique chamber jazz (“Weill You Wait”), and even twang-inflected rock and roll (“Roll”).
“It’s never about a solo trip,” says Muthspiel. “Everything is intertwined, forming one single narrative. That’s what I love about playing with these guys.”
A Working Band’s Intimacy
Over several years—and tours spanning Europe, the US, and Japan—Muthspiel, Colley, and Blade have cultivated a rare chemistry. All three are masters in their own right, but together they create music that feels less like a series of solos and more like a shared conversation. That intimacy is heightened by the trio’s consistent setting: each of their ECM albums has been recorded in Japan, and Tokyo continues the tradition.
Muthspiel moves fluidly between acoustic and electric guitars, shaping melodies with a soft touch and unfailing lyricism. His nearly five-year partnership with Colley has forged an intuitive harmonic relationship, evident in the freer passages of “Lisbon Stomp,” where the two spontaneously create progressions in real time. Blade’s drumming—always musical and never ornamental—serves as the connective tissue, from the sparse, laid-back fills on “Weill You Wait” to the constantly evolving backbeat on “Roll.”
Moments of Surprise
The album thrives on understatement and unorthodox choices. On “Strumming,” Muthspiel likens his role to a ride cymbal, using percussive guitar textures while Colley’s bowed bass takes the melodic lead. Blade’s climactic coda is a slow-building percussive crescendo, eschewing a typical mid-song solo. In “Roll,” Muthspiel plays Jaco Pastorius-like basslines on guitar while Colley’s bass functions like a horn section—an arrangement inspired by both Keith Jarrett vamps and Weather Report grooves. That fusion spirit surfaces again on “Christa’s Dream,” where Muthspiel sprinkles brief synthesizer-guitar textures reminiscent of Joe Zawinul.
The inspirations behind these compositions are as varied as their sound worlds. The folk-tinged “Strumming” recalls the simplicity of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, while “Traversia,” written during a hike along the Camino de Santiago, carries a modal design that Muthspiel associates more with Olivier Messiaen than with traditional jazz harmony. A children’s guitar used during its composition led him to adopt a higher tuning, lending the piece a Renaissance, lute-like color.
Homages and History
Muthspiel’s humor and reverence for jazz history surface in the punned title “Weill You Wait,” a direct homage to composer Kurt Weill. Drawing on Lotte Lenya’s uniquely sharp interpretations, the trio performs the piece with deliberate edge rather than sentimentality. The closing track, Paul Motian’s “Abacus”, ties the album to ECM’s deep jazz lineage, creating a circular narrative with the opener’s nod to Keith Jarrett.
Captured in Tokyo, Shaped in Munich
Recorded in Tokyo in October 2024 and mixed in Munich in February 2025 by ECM founder Manfred Eicher, the album’s sound reflects the label’s signature clarity and atmosphere. It’s the kind of project that could only be made by a “working band”—one that has lived inside the music long enough to know when to push, when to yield, and when to simply let a moment breathe.
In Tokyo, Muthspiel, Colley, and Blade offer more than a set of tunes—they deliver a seamless narrative where every note feels both spontaneous and inevitable. It’s chamber jazz, folk poetry, electric groove, and improvisational telepathy all in one.
When the trio takes the stage—or the studio—there’s no hierarchy, only three voices speaking as one. And in Tokyo, that voice is as eloquent and adventurous as it has ever been.
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