Christian Finger - Zeit Zirkel (2026)

Tracklist

01. Alta Anima
02. Hope And Hope
03. Fifteen PM
04. Dawn Dream
05. Stimmung M
06. Frei Geist
07. Wellenklang
08. Five Secrets I
09. Gentle Garden
10. Zeit Zirkel
11. Time Flows for You
12. Five Secrets II
13. Time Flows For Us

Christian Finger – drums/compositions; Ralph Alessi – trumpet; Ben Monder – guitar; Vadim Neselovskyi – piano; Adam Armstrong – double-bass

Christian Finger’s Zeit Zirkel takes dark feelings and turns them into hope for the days ahead, and something like inner peace. He composed all thirteen pieces here, and brought in four musicians who lead their own bands to play them — Ralph Alessi’s trumpet out front most often, Vadim Neselovskyi’s piano staying close beside him.

“Fifteen PM” starts pretty on trumpet, a subtle funk groove underneath. Alessi’s high notes recall Miles in his fusion bands. Monder’s guitar solo drags out its notes under heavy reverb; sounds like he’s dragging a cinder block across the strings. Then it’s just piano hitting a rhythmic phrase with bass and drums helping push it.

Quiet guitar opens “Dawn Dream,” no reverb, with piano falling in beside it and a quiet entrance from the trumpet. Cymbal washes keep Finger present but low-key, the music waking up slowly, a little more clear-eyed as it goes. Neselovskyi lets single notes fall like the start of rain; Monder’s guitar picks up the same gentle, falling sound behind him.

There’s a repeated rambling piano, trumpet, and bass intro on “Frei Geist.” Searching lines that start and stop with Alessi’s trumpet doing most of the talking. Neselovskyi plays short phrases that wander off, some notes fading away. They come back delicate at first, stumble, and get percussive, his fingers roaming the keys, speeding up, pulling back. The trumpet repeats the theme along with shimmering cymbals at song’s end.

“Wellenklang” opens calmly — bass, piano slowly repeating notes, drums barely there, the warm decay of guitar notes filling the room. The trumpet adds a few notes as accents before soloing: concise, clear-toned, smearing a note here and there, pushing the tempo with a real sense of urgency. That’s not Neselovskyi. His piano ambles, like there’s not a care in the world, right and left hand trading countermelodies, one scattering flurries of notes, the other helping anchor the rhythm.

Guitar and bass strum the title track’s rhythm together as trumpet enters soft, somber, the piano, short searching lines. The song slows, almost letting go, guitar the last voice before the fade. Two brief, colorful drum solos close the record — a glimpse of how good Finger’s playing is on an album where it mostly shaped things from just out of sight.