“Bands are like relationships,” says bassist Eva Kruse.“You have to go through the occasional crisis but, if you manage to stay together, you grow through it.” For bands, as for relationships, places also play an important role: the place where you got to know one another or the place where you grew up together. For Kruse’s trio, founded in 2002 under her name but which soon changed its name to [em] due to the equal role of Eric Schaefer on drums and Michael Wollny on piano, the JazzBaltica Festival in Salzau is just such an important place. It marks both the start and the culmination of their career to date: “[em] Live”, recorded as part of the 20th festival jubilee, is definitive evidence of the biggest success story in German jazz in recent years.

"... arguably the finest jazz album of the last quarter of a century."

(Stuart Nicholson, Jazzwise UK)