Ombak Trio on the first vinyl in the Live At Jazz Cerkno series

At the Jazz Cerkno, we continue to publish albums with concert recordings from our festival, which last year, despite difficult conditions, more than successfully celebrated its 25th anniversary! The album Look For The Difference by the Slovenian-Italian Ombak Trio was released on February 26. This edition is very special, as it is our first vinyl; it is released in a boutique edition of 50 copies, and the album is also available in digital form on our bandcamp page. Ombak Trio is a newer band consisting of saxophonist Cene Resnik, cellist Giovanni Maier and drummer Stefano Giust. The band’s music is inspired and spirited, similar to that of other Resnik bands, but with a much different sound, as Resnik plays the soprano saxophone in addition to the tenor, and Maier plays the cello instead of the double bass. The trio had a Slovenian premiere at our festival, and also a world one, as before that they only gathered for the recording of their debut Through Eons to Now, which was released in March 2020 by label Setola di Maiale, run by Giust.

Despite the fact that it was the first performance in front of the audience, the trio’s concert was declared one of the best at the festival in the reviews. “The international Ombak Trio in the line-up Resnik, Maier, Giust at its Slovenian concert debut presented the highlight of the evening of music with the more open ends. They played subtle, clear music, which really could not be driven into uncertainty,” Žiga Pucelj wrote for Odzven. According to Brigita Gračner and Marko Doles, journalists of Radio Študent, the trio was “the least definable sound entity of the evening, but perhaps also the most interesting in their research,” while Darinko Kores Jacks wrote for Večer that the musicians “presented sophisticated combination of occasionally atonal, even cacophonous and yet harmonious, but by no means oversaturated sound lines close to calmer free jazz.” Look For The Difference is the second album of the Ombak Trio and at the same time the second solo release of our Jazz Cerkno label. The vinyl record has an additional local touch, as it was made in nearby Idrija by the company XV. obzorje (Fifteenth Horizon).