RE: SATIE – Picturing the Invisible

When you think of Erik Satie – take his characteristic melancholy, enrich it with serenity and a touch of humor, and place the whole thing in the context of a contemporary jazz piano trio – you begin to guess what this album is about: the search for the image of the invisible in Satie's music.

For his second trio album, the German-born pianist and composer Philipp Rüttgers delves deep into the world of this most eccentric of French composers. He worked his way through Satie's complete works published by Éditions Salabert, collecting fragments and motifs. He carefully rearranged and reshaped these, much like constructing a new story from existing words. Satie's abstract and enigmatic qualities remain present, yet the music breathes naturally in the language of a modern piano trio.

Subtle traces of today's jazz vocabulary may surface, but the voice is unmistakably Philipp Rüttgers' own. His journey of exploration took him beyond the well-known "Gymnopédies" and "Gnossiennes" to lesser-known works such as "Les Fils des étoiles" ("The Son of the Stars") and "Uspud." These were composed during Satie's Rosicrucian period—before he broke with the order and founded his own religion, the Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur ("The Metropolitan Art Church of Jesus the Leader"), of which he was, as is well known, the sole member.

Satie's preference for restraint and reduction is clearly reflected in Philipp's playing: greater expression through fewer notes when the music demands it, and multifaceted complexity when it unfolds. Within this dynamic space, the interplay with drummer Sun-Mi Hong and bassist Omer Govreen gains remarkable depth. The trio listens attentively, shapes the balance organically, and allows transparency to become an expressive strength.