Wolfgang Haffner - Silent World

"Silent World" is perhaps the most personal album from drummer, composer, and bandleader Wolfgang Haffner yet. A master of clarity, focus, and reduction - accompanied by Dominic Miller, Nils Landgren, Till Brönner, Bill Evans, Rhani Krija, and many more.

It is scarcely two years since everything suddenly went quiet, and we all found ourselves living in a "Silent World". For Wolfgang Haffner, the most prominent German drummer of our time, things came to a particularly abrupt halt, not least because his regular schedule is so packed and his habitual work-rate is so prolific. He is normally travelling across all five continents, playing with stellar artists from all kinds of genres; his own exceptional craft as a drummer is to be heard on no fewer than 400 albums. Fortunately, however, Haffner has always considered himself to be at least as much a composer as he is a drummer, so once he had absorbed the initial shock of being grounded at home…taken long walks...watched a lot of TV...it was completely natural that he should devote himself to writing music. And, for once, he wasn’t having to fit it in between other commitments, but could set about it in a concentrated way. "In the normal course of things, everything I do comes with a built-in sense of urgency to get it done and over with. But now, thrown entirely onto my own resources, and without any background noise to distract me, I was able to ask myself what I actually wanted to do. What my own personal imprint looks like." It is logical, therefore, that the album which has resulted from this unique time should be called "Silent World".

It will especially delight fans who love to hear Haffner on his own terms. This dreamer in sound is able to combine groove and bounce with an extravagant sound palette, plus the power of simple melodies, and to bring it all together in a way which is unmistakably his. And he always creates a special kind of tension. In recent times, Haffner has drawn inspiration from external sources: In his "Kind of" trilogy, he dealt with cool jazz, the tango and the music of the country he adopted for a time as his home, Spain; in his "Dream Band", his guests contributed many pieces and influences. Now, however, he has concentrated on his own sound world once more. This excursion into it is even more radical than "Shapes", "Round Silence" or "Heart of the Matter", albums which put down the markers to define his highly individual sound.

"Silent World" is about the essentials of being human, a message which Haffner signals clearly with concise track titles such as "The Peace Inside", "Hope" or "Belief". Sometimes we’re in the world of hymns, sometimes of dreams, but there is always a melody to be grasped and a pulse to be felt, and those points of reference give a basis for the listener to focus and to enjoy the music thoroughly.

Less is often more here, and it was precisely this sense of clarity and simplicity that Haffner knew he could achieve in the studio. To this purpose he gathered a nucleus of kindred spirits around him: his long-time companion on the bass, Thomas Stieger; his closest confidant from recent years, Simon Oslender, whose total mastery of grand piano, keyboards and organ is something very rare. His newest discovery is Alma Naidu: she deploys her naturally angelic timbre like an instrumental voice, and she is to be heard on four tracks. Finally there is the innovative trumpeter Sebastian Studnitzky; he has been a regular feature of Haffner's most deeply personal music.