Anchored in the idea that, despite all obstacles, the human experience casts a net of possibilities, Defiant Life – Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith second duo recording for ECM – proves a profound meditation on the human condition and both the suffering and resilience it entails. An ethereal iridescence glistens between Leo Smith’s unmistakable trumpet wail and Vijay’s textural key strokes on piano and Fender Rhodes, conjuring multi-dimensional spaces of thoughtful musical conversation. “We work from our individual languages and materials,” notes Vijay in his extensive liner note, as well as “our methods of aural attunement, and what I would call a shared aesthetic of necessity”. A necessity both urgent and peaceful, ominously stated in the first long-track “Sumud”, then dressed in bluesy undertones throughout the “Floating River Requiem”, still doubtful but with silver linings on “Elegy: The Pilgrimage” and devastatingly beautiful in the concluding “Procession: Defiant Life”. If the album is a contemplation on life as such, then it is its sense of wonder that comes to full expression here. Recorded within two days at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo, Defiant Life was produced by Manfred Eicher.

“This recording session was conditioned by our ongoing sorrow and outrage over the past year’s cruelties, but also by our faith in human possibility.” – Vijay Iyer