"As the saying goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover." The same goes for wine. And, of course, for album covers.

In this case, however, an exception may be made. After Hans Koch and Flo Stoffner decided to release these recordings, they made a conscious decision to use this image by photographer Maxi Schmitz as the album cover. The choice is interesting in the sense that it reveals something about the artistic stance of the duo and their relationship to sound and its creation. Koch and Stoffner improvise. In this case, it happened in Koch's private studio. A place familiar to both of them, where the two friends have often improvised before. However, experienced improvisers - and both have been successful for years - are capable of "emptying" a well-known space. Things in the room disappear as soon as the first note sounds. The dialogue emerges uncontrollably. Only later, when one reacts to the other, does the unconscious come into play. The sound takes over the guidance of the musicians.

The image on the cover, in turn, speaks to the outcome. It is not a snapshot capturing the immediate present. Nor is the scene staged. The image portrays a space in a certain configuration. It is the visual result of something that must have happened previously. Therefore, the space symbolizes the culmination of what we will hear on this album. In the finest detail, we become witnesses. Playful, often dance-like, and sometimes with a wink, the two protagonists engage in this lively dialogue. Although the two are good friends in private and have often played together in different formations: Here, familiarity is not a spoiler but an opportunity to embark together on previously unheard-of things. And it is certainly no disadvantage that they come from different generations, have different backgrounds, so that each one's perspective is always reflected in the other's.

As one delves deeper into this intimate interplay, one realizes that there is something third, unmistakably present in the room: Silence, as a soundless observer, joins the two, transforming the duo into a trio. In the liner notes for Tetratne (ezz-thetics 1026), recorded by Stoffner together with drummer Paul Lovens, the great Evan Parker aptly describes this situation: "It should be clear that in improvised music anything can happen. However, narrative coherence is only attained when events find their place in the time-line. A mystic might say the sounds are only there to map the silences between them, to generate an inaudible counterpart which is then the real music."

In the trinity of play, the two musicians, along with silence, begin to meander the sounds, gently assembling them into a vivid mosaic. This brings us back to the album cover. The depicted scenery, which superficially could be described with adjectives like "chaotic" or "neglected," has, in fact, been "created." The space is the result of a complex interplay of actions not pre-planned: it is the outcome of improvisation. By what or by whom? We do not know. However, it is a fact that Hans Koch and Flo Stoffner were able to recognize the reflection of their own work in that photograph.

But just as no film adaptation is capable of capturing the literary power of a novel in images, a photograph is also incapable of making music resound. The same applies to the written word. When it comes to improvised music in particular, an author of liner notes reaches his verbal limits. The only escape door that remains open is interpretation. It allows the author to influence the way the music reaches the listener. But is it necessary for the writer to describe the music, the philosophy of sound, the creative dialog from one point of view? Knowing that each individual listener hears something completely different based on his/her collective memories and experiences? Does the author elevate himself to a kind of mediator who places himself between art and its recipients? Is Susan Sontag right when she says: "Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art"?

Or would the following advice alone be sufficient? Look at the cover of this album, then close your eyes and listen to the wonderful performances of these two musicians. Because in the end, all art speaks for itself."-Rudolf Amstutz, Feburary 2024