📷: Louisa Proske 
🖌: T.J. Huff
échos la nuit, Michaël Attias’ first solo album, was twelve years in gestation and recorded in a little over an hour. There are no overdubs: the alto is played with the left hand, the piano with the right. The reverberation is from the room and the sympathetic resonance of the piano strings set into vibration by the sound of the saxophone and intricate pedal-work. Mixed-limb unison timbres and dislocations tune a line suspended in what Busoni, referring to the sustain pedal, called “a picture of the sky” … melodies in free fall, echoes the night …
“Michaël Attias’ first solo album is an incredibly beautiful, patient, delicately unfurling recording, an intimate duo for alto saxophone and piano played by one person simultaneously [. . .] one of the most beautiful and unusual new albums I’ve heard in a long time.“
– Olie Brice, London Jazz News
“Hearing these 12 tracks is like inspecting the mysterious line drawings of a beloved artist. Sometimes you’ll almost discern the contour of a landscape or the dark shading of a limb, but ultimately the shapes all drift back into a desolate, spacious abstraction.“
– Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
“Although this record doesn’t remotely offer any hint of Attias’ formidable chops, it may be the most vivid album he’s ever made.“
– New York Music Daily
“This is music of deep inquiry and patient exposition. It has the air of a soul-baring even as Attias keeps his cards close to his vest.“
– Nate Chinen, Take Five (WBGO)
“Attias is beyond adept at taking a phrase and slowly developing it into a pure experience. The one-two punch that is ‘Circles’ and ‘Rue Oberkampf’ are perfect examples; both use time, space and extended techniques to explore what a solo saxophone is truly capable of achieving.“
– Eric Wendell, NYC Jazz Record
“Attias proves a master of moods while delivering the sparsest of melodic passages on the 12 cinematic pieces that make up échos la nuit . . . a one-man show of the highest order.”
– Brad Cohan, JazzTimes
“This album would have been very impressive from a duo, but considering it came from one person it is remarkable. Attias draws on many threads from classical music to jazz and free improvisation, melding them creatively to create an album that is fresh and unique.“
– Tim Niland, Music And More
“Whether Attias is scattering piano melodies, fluttering, or weaving serpentine lines on the alto, he is presenting accustomed and unfamiliar sounds concurrently, sometimes inside-out. Pieces that rely so heavily on repetition also depend on finding points of recovery along the way. What makes Attias’ pieces different is that each is interested in transformation as much as recapturing a theme. For all the music’s minimalist qualities, it is complex beneath the surface and best rewards careful listening.“
– Karl Ackermann, All About Jazz
“… every note and silence has meaning or feeling which is palpable. An utterly sublime effort that is more than a little haunting.“
– Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
Michaël Attias 