The release of Eivind Buene’s Personal Best marks a significant moment in 21st-century music, uniting narrative, history, and innovation in stunning fashion. Distributed by LAWO Classics, the album features Trio Accanto’s unique instrumentation, paired with expertise from SWR Experimentalstudio.
What sets this album apart is its fusion of live performance with candid recorded interviews. Buene captures both the music and the essence of its creators—saxophonist Marcus Weiss, pianist Nicolas Hodges, and percussionist Christian Dierstein—rendering them not just as instrumentalists, but as living, breathing storytellers.
Buene’s inventive use of electronic processing underpins shifting soundscapes, from tranquil meditations to impassioned surges. This technique foregrounds his philosophy of “embodied history”: music as a lived and shared human experience rather than an abstract form.
Coupled with Buene’s fresh, English-language interpretations of Brahms’ Serious Songs, Personal Best offers a masterclass in artistic vulnerability. It stands as a shining example of how personal recollection can become universal through the lens of creative collaboration.