To the Rising Moon is Stephan Micus’ 26th solo album for ECM. It features instruments from Colombia, India, Xinjiang (China), Bavaria, Cambodia, Egypt and Borneo, but taking centre stage is the Colombian tiple, slightly smaller than an acoustic guitar.

The sunny plucked sound of the tiples alternates with darker bowed strings which bring a more meditative mood. It’s only in the final track, To the Rising Moon, that the two worlds of the plucked tiples and bowed strings finally come together.

It’s like a hymn to something that is eternally up there in the night sky, something consistent while there is so much turbulence in the world below.

Once again, Stephan Micus takes us on a unique musical journey to places unknown that couldn’t have been created or played by anyone else.

1. To The Rising Sun [4:01]
2. Dream Within Dream [4:04]
3. In Your Eyes [5:20]
4. The Veil [3:31]
5. Unexpected Joy [4:20]
6. Waiting For The Nightingale [4:35]
7. The Silver Fan [2:56]
8. Embracing Mysteries [7:00]
9. To The Lilies In The Field [4:21]
10. The Flame [3:57]
11. To The Rising Moon [7:09]

Recorded between 2021-2023 at MCM Studios, the album opens on the melodious To The Rising Sun (which, as noted, features the tiple, which has 12 steel strings in four triple courses and it’s a composition for two tiples here) and a yearning ache that resides within Dream Within Dream (which features six dilruba, a South Asian bowed instrument that Stephan gets to sound very lyrical and cello-like), and then we get the sculpted In Your Eyes (where three tiples plus voice, in the mood of a poetic love song, are coupled), the ornately bowed-stringed The Veil, and then comes the smoothly dutiful Unexpected Joy (built for two tiples).

Along next is the noted centerpiece of this majestic recording, the amalgamation of winds and strings on the euphorically emboldened Waiting For The Nightingale and the alternating tiple and bowed pieces continue within the dulcet The Silver Fan, the deep, cello-like sounds of the dilruba come to the fore on Embracing Mysteries, once again, two tiples are evident within the lamenting To The Lilies In The Field, the album rounding out on the use of tableharps - a contemporary instrument that Stephan last played on his 1978 album Till the End of Time - within The Flame, the two worlds of the plucked tiples and bowed strings finally coming together on the final track, the stoic, yet emphatically-imbibed To The Rising Moon.

Official Purchase Link

www.stephanmicus.com