Nik Bärtsch’s RONIN

Since 2001, Ronin has formed the missing link between minimal music, jazz, Zen meditation and Eastern martial arts. With extreme precision, Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch has built a consistent body of work, including critically acclaimed albums on ECM Records. Using ‘modules’ — numbered compositions — he constructs an intricate structure in which surprising rhythms and grooves emerge. The tight execution invites comparisons with minimal techno and electronic music.

Over the years, Ronin has seen only a handful of personnel changes. The newest member is Jeremias Keller on bass, alongside Sha on bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet and Kaspar Rast on drums. Their latest album SPIN, released on Ronin Rhythm Records, marks more than twenty years of weekly playing: in January 2024 the thousandth concert took place at their own club EXIL in Zürich, a milestone that can be heard in the music itself.

‘The music of Ronin, named after a samurai warrior without a clan, can change like a jawbreaker of style and atmosphere. In a seamlessly connected collection of pieces that bear no names but are numbered modules, an intensely conceived show moves suddenly from minimal music with repeating rhythmic patterns to full-bodied peaks of funk’ (NRC).