LDL (Urs Leimgruber / Jacques Demierre / Thomas Lehn) - the eerie glow of jellyfish (Relative Pitch, 2026)

By Eyal Hareuveni

The free-improvising LDL trio - Swiss soprano sax player Urs Leimgruber, pianist and keyboard player Jacques Demierre (who also collaborates with Leimgruber in a duo), and German EMS analogue synth and sound processing player Thomas Lehn - emerged from the trio LDP - Leimgruber, Demierre, and the late American double bass master Barre Philips, which worked between 2001 and 2021, and hosted Lehn in Willisau (jazzwerkstatt, 2019). LDL recorded its debut live album, in the endless wind, in 2023 (Wide Ear, 2024), continuing LDP’s aesthetics, which recorded most of its albums in live settings.

the eerie glow of jellyfish was recorded live at the Kaleidophon Festival in Ulrichsberg, Austria, in April 2024 (where LDP + Lehn performed in 2019), and features a five-movement suite. Demierre plays the amplified spinet (which he played in the duo album with Leimgruber, It Forgets About The Snow, Creative Sources, 2021), so two keyboards - the acoustic, harpsichord-like spinet and the vintage analogue synthesizer, both augmented by Lehn’s live sound processing, embrace Leimgruber’s soprano sax at the center of the sound image.

the eerie glow of jellyfish is an uncompromising, tension-filled, and volatile improvisation, relying on deep listening and thoughtful, precise exploration of the performance’s acoustic space. LDL is deeply immersed in a stubborn, collective process of continuously filling and emptying the sound space, allowing the unorthodox instrumentation and LDL’s idiosyncratic sonic palettes to manifest themselves in the most personal and freest manner possible. This captivating process suggests LDL as a live organism that acts within an unpredictable, highly resonant, and often noisy, yet hyper-attentive dialogue where elusive structure and spontaneous, individual musical events are in constant negotiation. LDL always challenges and disrupts the individual sonic palettes and never resorts to familiar sonic options or narratives.

the eerie glow of jellyfish offers an insightful listening experience that transforms the soprano sax, spinet, and the analog synth into new, surprising sonic dimensions. LDL’s profound sensibility of listening liberates its instruments, far beyond our preconceptions. It is a sonic journey that visits close and faraway exotic, otherworldly, and the freest sonic territories, but with deep roots in European free improvisation and contemporary music.