„Convergences“

Between the years I have much time to read and listen and watch. Yesterday I opened the winter season of my small „Electric Cave“, with six people watching that movie „Medium Cool“ by Haskell Wexler that I regard as a masterpiece of political cinema from the late 1960’s. It comes along with a deepness and emotional nakedness that I put on par with Walter Salles’ recent Brazilian movie „I’m Still Here“ set in the darkest times of dictatorship in 1970.

Before that, I had the opportunity to listen to an album of uninhibited magic. Afterwards I read about this album of former Can Man Irmin Schmidt. i was impressed by his latest solo piano work that has been running under the public radar like so much wonderful music is. The old hard core fans shortly pay attention, but then miss the ancient vibes and look at such works as a footstep or a reminder to go for the old records again. Reading this announcement, it seems to be another solo work with our terrible state of the world in mind – and a quantum of utopia. Finding solace. Resistance.

It would probably fit well with that „uninhibited magic“ (I mentioned in the first sentence) of Björn Meyer‘s second solo work for ECM, „Convergence“ to be released one day after my Steve Tibbetts portrait at the Deutschlandfunk, on Jan 23, 2026. Darker than his debut „Provenance“, and miles away from any self-indulegnt virtuosity running on empty, it is another burner from the electric bass player who once was part of Nik Börtsch‘s Ronin and its „zen funk“. I love the cover of „Provenance“, and I love the cover of „Convergence“. A visual signifier par excellence. (The cd can already be ordered at jpc.)

Convergence comes from the prefix con-, meaning together, and the verb verge, which means to turn toward. We can use convergence to describe things that are in the process of coming together, like the slow convergence of your opinions with those of your mother, or for things that have already come together, like the convergence of two roads, or for the place where two things already overlap, like the convergence of your aunt’s crazy wardrobe with avant-garde fashion.